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Ai THOR: 

SHAW 


? 


HARLES  GRAY 


TITLE: 


THE  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY 
OF  HUMAN  LIFE... 


PLA  CE : 


BOSTON 


DA  TE : 


1911] 


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ftCT 


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THE  VALUE  &  DIGNITY 
OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


THE 

VALUE  &  DIGNITY 
CF  HUMAN  LIFE 

AS  SHOWN  IN  THE  STRIVING  AND 
SUFFERING  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

BY 

CHARLES  GRAY  SHAW 


RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE  GORHAM  PRESS 
BOSTON 


COPYRIGHT   1911  BY  RICHARD  G.  BADGER 
AU  Rights  Reserved 


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TO 
RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

As  a  humble  tribute  to  a  great  thinker  and  sincere  appre- 
ciation  of  a  faithful  friend  this  volume  is 

inscribed 


THE  GORHAM  PRESS,  BOSTON,  U.  S.  A. 


PREFACE 


This  book  has  been  written  with  the  conviction  that  a 
radical  change  is  taking  place  in  our  conception  of  human 
ideals  and  activities.     Traditional  theories  and  conventional 
morals  seem  to  give  a  most  inadequate  view  of  man's  inner 
life,  while  they  are  equally  inefficient  in  accounting  for  his 
strivings  in  the  world.    For  this  reason,  it  becomes  necessary 
to  assume  a  new  view  of  humanity,  to  ask,  as  if  for  the 
first  time,  what  is  man  for  ?    Such  a  question  is  taken  up  in 
the  following  work,  which  seeks  to  determine  the  apparent 
goal  of  human  activity,  and  does  not  assume,  with  hedonist 
or  intuitionist,  that  life  in  its  totality  may  be  expressed  at 
once  in  terms  of  desire  or  duty.    Was  man  meant  for  happi- 
ness?   That  question  is  rather  artless,  is  it  not?    Then,  was 
man  meant  for  virtue  ?    Yes,  but  what  is  virtue,  and  who  is 
man  ?     With  the  problem  of  life  as  such  in  mind,  this  book 
aims  to  elaborate  a  system  of  major  morality,  based  upon  the 
totality  of  our  human  striving.     In  the  pursuit  of  such  a 
problem,  major  ethics  deems  it  proper  to  isolate  the  ego  in  his" 
individuality,  and  to  examine  his  strivings  after  selfhood.    Is 
it  too  much  to  hope  that  this  view  of  ethics,  this  estimate  of 
the  moral  life,  may  be  of  aid  to  one  who  is  anxious  to  com- 
prehend  the  meaning  of  humanity,   in  order  that  he  may 
find  his  own  place  in  the  vast  world?     At  any  rate,  this  is 
the  purpose  of  major  morality. 

On  the  academic  side,  it  must  be  stated  that  the  material 
contained  in  the  following  pages  has  already  served  a  prac- 
tical purpose  among  students  of  philosophy  in   New  York 


6  PREFACE 

University,  where  the  lectures  on  ethics  have  followed  the 
plan  laid  down  in  the  table  of  contents.  In  publishing  this 
work,  I  am  happy  in  having  the  privilege  of  dedicating  it  to 
my  former  teacher,  Professor  Rudolf  Eucken,  whose  phil- 
osophy is  becoming  such  a  factor  in  American  thought  to-day. 
At  the  same  time,  I  regret  that,  in  pondering  upon  these 
ethical  problems,  I  have  had  before  me  no  work  on  ethics 
from  the  pen  of  this  master,  and  I  can  only  express  the  hope 
that  the  near  future  may  witness  the  publication  of  his  theory 
of  conduct.  To  my  colleague,  Professor  Robert  MacDougall, 
I  am  indebted  for  assistance  in  correcting  the  proofs,  and  I 
take  this  opportunity  to  praise  him  for  his  patience  and  to 
thank  him  for  his  aid.  My  wife  assumed  the  more  trying 
task  of  reading  the  manuscript  and  helped  me  make  it  pre- 
sentable. 

C.  G.  S. 

University  Heights. 


CONTENTS 

PART  ONE:  THE  PROBLEM  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 
T  Page 

1 — THE  STRIVING  OF  HUMANITY  WITH  NATURE 19 

1.  The  ambiguous  position   of  humanity.        The      19 
development  of  a  goal.     The  deduction  of  moral 
life. 

2.  The  striving  of  humanity  with  nature,  24 
a — Speculative  striving.       Separation  of  thought     24 
from  the  world.     Affirmation  of  an  inner  realm. 
h—The  aesthetic  impulse  of  humanity.     Affirm-     27 
ation  of  human  freedom.     Conflict  of  art  with 
nature. 

c—The  religious  affirmation  of  the  soul.     Asser-     30 

tion  of  the  self.     Negation  of  the  world. 

d — The    ethical    activity    of    humanity.       The     32 

struggle  for  humanity.     Ethics  as  philosophy  of 

life. 

II — THE  CONTINUITY  OF   HUMAN    STRIVING 36 

1.  The  category  of  development.     The  historical     36 
in  ethics. 

2.  The    ethical    moment    in    history.       Ceaseless     37 
striving  after  humanity. 

3.  The   historical  view   of  ethics.     The   internal     40 
in  history.     The  temporal  element  in  progress. 

4.  The  stages  of  human  history.  Naturistic,  43 
characteristic,  humanistic  periods.  The  three 
Gunas  of  Sankhyan  philosophy.  Plato's  tri- 
partite Republic.  Valentinus'  triple  order  of 
men.  The  historical  schemes  of  Vico  and 
Schiller. 

5.  Phases  of  the  moral  life.     Hedonism,  rigorism.     48 
humanism.     Ethics  of  the  third  order. 

Ill — THE    WORLD   OF    HUMANITY 52 

I.     Human  striving  and  historical  progress.     Hu-     52 
manity  the  goal  of  man's  efforts.     The  positing 
of  a  human  world-over. 


CONTENTS 


2.  The  world  of  humanity  in  theory. 

a—The  world  of  thought.  Aryan  intellect- 
ualism. 

b—The  ethical  world-order.  Semitic  pragma- 
tism. 

3.  Positive  view  of  the  world  of  humanity. 
a—The  world  of  culture.       World-significance 
of  beauty.     Art  and  the  world-life. 

h—The  world  of  worship.  The  spontaneity  of 
religion.     Life  in  the  religious  world-order. 

4.  The  world-life  in  human  consciousness.    Direct 
evidence  of  the  world-life. 

a — Humanity  and  the  individual.  The  person- 
al problem.  The  nature  of  selfhood.  Human 
search  for  the  soul. 

b — The  world  of  persons  in  human  conscious- 
ness. Essential  relation  of  self  to  self.  Phil- 
osophical and  poetical  views.  Subtle  bond 
between  persons. 


Page 

55 

56 

58 

60 

60 

62 


65 
66 


70 


PART  TWO:  THE  NATURISTIC  VIEW  OF  LIFE 


I — THE   LIFE  OF  HUMANITY  IN  SENSE 

1.  The  first  stage  of  mankind.  The  idea  of 
progress. 

2.  The  origin  of  moral  life.  The  striving  of 
man.     The  progress  from  nature  to  spirit. 

3.  The  possibility  of  moral  progress.  Evidence 
of  ethical  development.     Interest,  virtue,  value. 

4.  The  entrance  of  idealism.  Experience  and 
the  ideal.  Spirit  in  the  midst  of  sense.  The 
necessity  of  naturism. 

II— THE    FEELING    OF    HUMANITY    IN    PLEASURE    AND 
DESIRE     

1.  Life  according  to  pleasure-pain.  Life  as  en- 
joyment.   Quality  and  quantity  of  feeling. 

2.  The  hedonic  calculus.  l"he  perceptual  anal- 
ogy.    Difficulty  with  attention  and  memory. 

3.  The  hedonic  law.  Change  from  enjoyment 
to  benefit. 


79 
79 

81 

84 
87 


92 

92 

96 
99 


CONTENTS 


9 


Page 

4.  Life     according     to     desire.       Desire     more   102 
elemental    than    pleasure.      Life    activistic,    not 
hedonic.     Desire  and  pleasure. 

5.  Desire   and   human   striving.     Self-realization   104 
more  than   pleasure.     The  craving  for  power. 
Naturism  more  than  hedonism. 

Ill — THE    NATURISTIC    VIEW    OF    THE    SELF    AND    HU- 
MANITY          108 

1.  Human  Selfhood.  108 
a — Selfhood  in  sense.  Selfhood  as  self-love.  The  110 
self  and  individuation.       Weakness  of  selfhood 

in  sense. 

b — The  will  to  selfhood.     The  solitaire  and  the   114 

supe-man.     Self-love  and  self-will. 

2.  Human  worldhood.  118 
a — The  utilitarian  adjustment.  The  greatest  118 
happiness.     Universal  benevolence. 

b — The    social    organization   of   conduct.     The  121 

social    organism.     Conciliation    of    egoism    and 

altruism. 

c — Egoism   and   Socialism.     Altruist   and    sym-  124 

pathist. 

IV — THE  TRANSMUTATION  OF  NATURISM  AND  MORAL- 
ISM     129 

1.  The  problem  of  moralism.  Morality  as  per-  129 
fected  virtue.     Morality  as  heteronomy. 

2.  The  conflict   over  virtue.      Antipathy  to  the   132 
moralistic     view.       Absorption     of     virtue     in 
utility. 

3.  Heteronomy  and  humanity.  Relation  of  the  135 
moral  to  the  human. 

4.  The  relativity  of  the  good.  The  case  of  speci-  136 
fie  virtues.    The  symbolic  nature  of  benevolence. 

V NATURISM    AS    EUDAEMONISM 141 

1.  TJu  form  of  happiness  as  immediacy.   Animal-   141 
ity  and  humanity.     Hellenic  happiness.     Classic 
contemplation. 

2.  Happiness  as  possession  of  the  good.     Posses-   145 
sion    versus    pursuit.     The    secondary    ideal    of 
activity. 


lO 


CONTENTS 


Page 
Aristole's  148 


3.  The    "work     of    contemplation.' 
ideal.     Bacon's  argument. 

4.  The  content  of  happiness  in  activity.         The   152 
value  of   knowledge.     Skeptical   attitude  of  the 
modern.     Labor  as  anodyne.     "Cultivating  the 
garden."     Will  and  intellect. 

5.  Naturistic    optimism.     Literary    utilitarianism.    156 
Life  and  labor. 

VI— RESULT  OF  NATURISM— THE  VALUE   OF   LIFE l6o 

1.  The   range   of   naturism.      Passive    and    active    160 
forms  of  the  doctrine. 

2.  The  worth   of  life.     The  claim  of  life  upon   162 
humanity. 

3.  The    striving     of    humanity     beyond    nature,   165 
Organization  of  life  in  civilization.    The  affirm- 
ation of  humanity  in  culture.    The  trans-natural 
vocation  of  man. 

4.  The  inness  of  human  feeling.     Judgments  of   168 
feeling. 

5-      The     entrance     of     pessimism. 
optimistic   weakness.      Inability    of 
satisfy  human  striving. 

6.  The  meaning  of  human  feeling. 
life.    Problem  of  human  sensitivity, 
biguous  position  in  the  worldwhole. 

7.  The  sense  of  human  striving.     Persistence  of   175 
desire  and   human   positing.       The   mystery  of 
activity.     Man  both  creature  and  character. 


Hedonism's   169 
nature     to 

The  inner   172 
Man's  am- 


PART  THREE:  CHARACTERISTIC  ETHICS 

I ^THE  LIFE  OF  HUMANITY  IN  WILL i8l 

1.  Forms     of    the    doctrine.        Intuitionism    and    181 
rigorism. 

2.  The  place  of  characteristic  ethics.     Relation  to   182 
second    period    of    human    history.        Academic 
value  of  rationalism. 

3.  The     transition     from     nature     to     character.    186 
Variations  of  virtue  limited.     Similar  transition 


CONTENTS 


II 


/  Page 

trom  sensation  to  idea.  Unity  of  humanity 
amidst  changes.  Dual  form  of  characteristic 
ethics. 

4.      Characteristic  ethics  as  intuitionism.     Develop-   189 
ment  of  the  intuition. 

II CHARACTERISTIC    ETHICS    AND    CONSCIENCE 191 

1.  The  moral  sense  and  pleasure.     Terminology   191 
of   conscience.      Psychology   of   conscience   as   a 
sense. 

2.  The  humanity  of  conscience.     Value  of  origins.   195 
The  evolutionary  view.     Relation  of  conscience 

to  social  environment. 

3.  The  outer  conflict  of  the  ego  with  humanity.   199 
Dramatic  possibilities  of  the  sentiment.     Good 
and   bad  conscience. 

4.  The    inner    conflict    between    sentiment    and  203 
passion.     Durability  of  human  sentiment. 

5.  Resentment  and  remorse.     How  humanity  in  204 
man  triumphs.     Intellectual  limits  of  conscience. 

6.  Conscience  and  non-resentment.     The  anticipa-  206 
tion  of  remorse. 

7.  The  possibility  of  malevolence.       Humanistic  209 
ground  of  non-resentment. 

Ill CHARACTERISTIC    ETHICS  AND  RECTITUDE 212 

1.  Moral  life  in  reason.     Transition  from  senti-  212 
ment  to  judgment.    The  norm  of  rectitude. 

2.  Rectitude  as  autonomy.     Antipathy  to  inclina-  215 
tion  and  consequence.     How  ethical  judgments 

are  possible. 

3.  The  problem  of  ethical  judgment.     Judgment  218 
and  identity.     Qualification  of  copula  and  pre- 
dicate. 

4.  Real  rectitude  and  human  interest.    Possibility  220 
of  disinterestedness. 

5.  Humanity  as  the  ideal.       Real  rectitude  and  222 
universal  interest.     Transition  from  rectitude  to 
duty. 

IV — HUMAN    STRIVING    AS    FREEDOM 227 

I.      The  place  of  freedom  in  the  world.     Freedom  227 
and  law. 


12 


CONTENTS 


Page 

2.  The   punctual  view   of  freedom.     Arguments  228 
from     consciousness     and     compunction.       The 
totality  of  human  freedom. 

3.  Evidences  of  creative  freedom.     Testimony  of  232 
art    and   science.        Results    from    religion    r*nd 
morality. 

4.  The  unity  of  freedom  and  fate.     Man  and  the  235 
"free  moral  agent."     How  man  transcends  free- 
will. 

V THE    ETHICAL    DEMANDS   OF    HUMANITY 239 

1.  The  demand  as  individual  duty.  Duty  as  240 
moral  law.     Metaphysical  nature  of  duty. 

2.  The  self-contradiction  of  individual  will.     The  243 
question    concerning    the    quality    of    conation. 
Effect  upon  morality. 

3.  Obligation  as  human  responsibility.    The  inner   246 
nature  of  duty.     Duty  and  human  destiny.     Hu- 
man responsibility. 

VI THE    LIFE    OF    RIGORISM •    25 1 

1.  The  ideal  of  renunciation.  Its  religious  signi-  251 
ficance.     Rigorism  and  eudaemonism. 

2.  Life  as  sinful.  World-despair.  Nihilistic  253 
ideals.     Moralism  and  pessimism. 

3.  The  idealization  of  pain.     Renunciatory  ideal  258 
in   modern    poetry.      Attack   upon    the    depress- 
ing ideal.    Criticism  of  doubt  and  repentance. 

4.  The  passion  for  morality.  E^ffect  upon  the  262 
aesthetical. 

5.  The  hatred  of  life.  Belief  in  pain.  Conscious-  265 
ness  of  death.    Antipathy  to  culture. 

VII — THE    EFFECT    OF    CHARACTERISTIC    ETHICS — THE 

DIGNITY    OF    MAN     27O 

1.  Intuitionism  and  life.     Artificial  view  of  con-  271 
science  and  rectitude.    Weakness  of  freedom  and 
duty.      No  ground  for  renunciation. 

2.  Special  problems  of  characteristic  Ethics.  275 
a — Conscience  as  conflict  with  humanity.  In-  276 
dividual  compunction. 

b — The  fallacy  of  rectitude  and  its  humanistic  277 
correction.     The  content  of  rectitude. 


CONTENTS 


13 


■p  _ 

c — The  world  of  freedom  and  free-will.     Free-  278 
dom  within  humanity. 

d— Imperative  duty  as  human  striving.      Com-  279 
mon  ground  of  duty  and  desire. 
3.     Escape  from  rigorism  through  human  dignity.  281 
General  view  of  life  in  rigorism.       Intellectual 
dignity  of  man.     Dignity  a  substitute  for  duty. 

PART  FOUR:  HUMANISTIC  ETHICS 

I — MAJOR   AND   MINOR   MORALITY 287 

1.  The  Life  of  Humanity  in  Spirit 287 

2.  Humanity  as  a  system.     Total  view  of  the  life-  289 
problem.     Non-ethical  views  of  life.     The  fail- 
ure to  find  humanity.     Life  not  beyond  dispute. 

3.  7  he  minor  nature  of  hedonism  and  intuition-  293 
ism.    Lost  sense  of  inner  unity.    Eccentric  ethics. 
Adherence   to  naturism.  Pettiness  of  minor 
morality.     Table  of  major  and  minor  morals. 

4.  The  pragmatic   repudation    of  reason.     Deca-  300 
dent  morality.     Contempt  for  the  intellect.    An- 
aesthetic effect  of  activism. 

5.  l^he  morality  of  maxims.     Maxims  and  activ-  303 
ity.     Ideals  of  the  intellect.     Distrust  of  art. 

6.  The  categories   of  major   morality.     Place   of  306 
value  and  dignity.     Contrast  with  good-virtue, 
rectitude-duty. 

THE  CATEGORY  OF  VALUE 309 

1.  The  actuality  of  value.     Value  and  the  good.  309 
Lack   of   activism.      Value   and   modern   ideals. 
Want  of  moral  goal. 

2.  The    conceptual   nature    of   value — value   and  312 
progress.  Reconciliation  of  idealism  and  activism. 
Romantic  nature  of  modern  ethics.        Place  of 
value  in  human  striving.     How  value  is  found. 
Value  and  progress. 

3.  Value  as  an  intuition.     Reconciliation  of  sense  317 
and  reason.    Intuitive  nature  of  humanity.    Com- 
parison with  aesthetics. 

4.  The  source  of  the  value-judgment.     Value  in-  319 
tcrnal.     Value  and  feeling. 


II 


14 


CONTENTS 


Page 

5.  Value,   pleasure    and   desire.       Advantage    of  321 
pleasure  as  a  determinant.     Limitation  of  pleas- 
ure.    Value  and  desire.     Limitation  of  empiri- 
cal desire.     Value  and  desirability.     The  ideali- 
zation of  desire. 

Ill VALUE  AS  AN    ETHICAL  SANCTION 327 

1.  The  ground  of  moral  judgment.     Virtue  not  327 
without  worth.     The  ground  and  goal  of  moral 
endeavor. 

2.  The  sense  of  moral  action.     The  category  of  329 
absolute  value.    Moral  values  established  through 
humanity. 

3.  Value  as  basis  of  moral  belief.     Treatment  of  ^2>^ 
moral  skepticism.     Value  and  moral  decadence. 
Relation  of  value  to  right  and  wrong. 

4.  The  world  of  values.     Ontological  nature  of  335 
value.     The    permanent    values    of     humanity. 
Eternal  justice  and  eternal  values. 

5.  The  world  of  values  as  moral  goal.     Ground   338 
of  human  existence  and  action.     The  transval- 
uation  of  values. 

IV HUMAN  DIGNITY  AS  ETHICAL  CATEGORY 34 1 

1.  The   dignity    of  the   inner   life.       Man   as   a  341 
world.     His  world-life. 

2.  The  dignity  of  action.       Action  and  inaction.   343 
Yogi  worklessness.     The  will's  limitations. 

3.  Activity    as   creative.     The   creative    phase   of  346 
h       .1  striving.     The  totality  of  action.     Deed- 
act  and  Vollthat. 

4.  Completeness    of   action    in    self-consciousness.  349 
Action  as  intelligent.     World-work.     Work  as 
introactivity. 

5.  I'he  intellectual  dignity  of  humanity.  Intel-  352 
lect  and  supreme  humanity.  Contrast  between 
thinking  and  acting.  The  pragmatic  view  of 
life.  Action  inferior  to  thought.  Unity  of  will 
and  intellect  in  consciousness.  Intellectual  na- 
ture of  human  striving. 

6.  Culture   and   conduct.       Culture   and   human  357 


CONTENTS 


15 


Page 
work.       Striving  after  self-knowledge.       Limits 
of  voluntarism.     Pragmatism  and  the  inner  life. 

V — THE    DIGNITY    OF    SELFHOOD 361 

1.  The  striving  for  human  selfhood.  The  ego  and  362 
humanity.     The  right  path  to  personality.     In- 
sufficiency of  egoism  and  altruism. 

2.  Contemplative  egoism.     Selfhood  and  culture.  365 
Hedonic  and  humanistic  egoism. 

3.  Tlie  ego  and  his  individuality.   Recent  attempts  368 
at   egoism.        Intellectual   self-assertion.        The 
striving  after  inner  life. 

4.  The  sense  of  human  worldhood.     The  intel-  374 
lectual  view  of  humanity.      Humanity  and  the 
world  as  a  whole.     Humanity  and  history. 

5.  Solidarity  and  pessimism.    Self-sacrifice.  Pessi-  377 
mism  and  compassion. 

VI — THE  TRIUMPH  OF   HUMANITY  IN   MAJOR   MORAL- 
ITY         380 

1.  Human  triumph  in  consciousness — The  value  38 1 
of  life.     Man  as  valuing  organism.     Happiness 
and    reality.        Reconciliation   of   optimism   and 
pessimism. 

2.  The  triumph  over  immediacy.     From  pleasure  383 
to  desire.        Utility  and  eudaemonia.       Human 
values  remote.     Fallacy  of  activism. 

3.  Human   triumph   in  conduct — The  dignity   of  386 
man.      Conduct    a5    reaction    upon    the    world. 
Moral  pessimism.     The  subordination  of  sense. 
The  significance    of    conscience    and    rectitude. 
Dignity  of  human  freedom  and  duty.     Value  of 

the  renunciatory  ideal. 

4.  The  triumph  over  renunciation.     Attitude  of  391 
man  toward  the  world.     Opposition  to  renun- 
ciation.    Essential  value  of  rcnu'^  "?»*'nn. 

5.  The  dignity  of  acquiescence.      Unity  of  value  394 
and   dignity.      Sublime   quality  of   renunciation. 
The  life-impulse  and   death-instinct.     The   real 
human    problem — to   will   self   and    the   world. 
Unity  of  selfhood  and  worldhood.     The  reality 

of  human  triumph. 


PART  ONE 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


THE  VALUE  &  DIGNITY 
OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


THE  STRIVING  OF  HUMANITY  WITH 

NATURE 

The  problem  of  our  human   h'fe  appears  in  the  am- 
bipous  position  that  man  occupies  in  the  world-whole :  its 
solution   comes   about   by   the   inner   striving  of   humanity 
with  outer  nature.     Humanity  stands  midway  between  na- 
ture  and  spirit,  receiving  from  the  lower  order  the  will  with 
which  he  lives,  from  the  higher  the  ideal  toward  which  he 
strives.     Human   striving  whether  in  thought  or  action  is 
provoked  by  this  paradoxical  position  occupied  by  man  who 
sees  that  he  cannot  remain  in  the  world  of  sense,  while  he 
is  not  ready  for  life  in  the  world  of  spirit.     All  knowledge 
must  finally  adjust   itself  to  the  claims  of  experience  and 
understanding  and  all  action  conduct  itself  in  view  of  na- 
tural desire  and  rational  duty;  for  while  man  may  belong 
to  the  realm  of  spirit,  his  speculative  and  practical  problems 
must  be  solved  in  view  of  his  origin  in  the  natural  order  of 
sensation      As  man  strives  to  realize  his  inherent  selfhood 
and  worldhood,  he  must  inquire  continually  concerning  his 
place  in  the  universe  and  the  problem  that  his  life  presents, 
l^rom  all  that  humanity  seems  to  feel  and  all  that  it  has  at- 
tjempted  in  the  past,  it  seems  as  though  man  were  destined 
to  posit  his  spiritual  nature  in  speculative  contrast  and  prac- 
tical opposition  .to  the  world  that  all  but  envelops  him. 

I — THE    AMBIGUOUS    POSITION    OF    HUMANITY 

In  a  certain  sense  there  is  nothing  extraordinary  in  the 
problems  of  culture  and  conduct  as  these  have  disturbed 
the  human  spirit  since  the  inception  of  conscious  spiritual 
life  among  the  Hindoos  and  Hebrews.  All  questions  con- 
cerning the  means  of  knowledge  and  the  motives  for  action 
arc  conditioned  by  the  ambiguity  of  our  human  attitude,  and 

10 


20    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

where  now  the  sensational  and  then  the  rational  claims  man, 
the  problem  arising  is  due  to  no  other  fact  than  the  partici- 
pation of  a  natural  creature  in  an  order  of  life  above  him. 
In  no  other  way  than  as  a  conflict  between  matter  and  mind, 
of  the  sensuous  and  the  spiritual,  could  human  life  as  such 
arise  and  develop.  For  the  animal  the  world  is  all  sense, 
so  that  his  life  contains  nothing  problematic;  for  the  angel 
all  is  spirit,  so  that  cherubim  and  seraphim  are  free  from 
philosophic  responsibility.  But  man's  midway  position  as 
well  as  the  mixture  of  sense  and  spirit  in  his  consciousness 
make  it  needful  for  him  to  inquire  concerning  his  place  in 
the  world-whole  and  to  posit  his  inner  life  in  contrast  to  his 
outer  existence.  Only  as  this  self-ai5irmation  is  taken  up  by 
man  can  humanity  appear  in  the  universe. 

The  self-positing  of  humanity  is  no  mere  academic 
affair,  involving  the  cool  elaboration  of  judgments,  nor  is  it 
an  instinctive  matter  which  comes  about  naturally  in  the 
course  of  human  life.  It  Is  a  complete  deed  on  the  part 
of  man  involving  ceaseless  striving,  just  as  it  is  accomplished, 
not  immediately,  but  gradually  in  the  historial  progress  of 
the  human  spirit.  Individual  effort  and  universal  struggle 
on  the  part  of  nations  seem  thus  to  have  no  other  meaning 
than  the  inner  affirmation  of  a  humanity  which  arises  in  the 
world  of  time  and  space.  Humanity,  viewed  either  indivi- 
dually or  socially,  Is  no  primitive  possession  of  mankind,  but 
an  achievement  brought  about  by  characteristic  human  acti- 
vity. Being  both  within  and  without  the  world  of  nature, 
humanity  Is  called  upon  to  originate  something  characterized 
by  both  the  phenomenal  and  the  real,  the  sensuous  and  the 
spiritual.  Such  is  the  problem  of  life  as  it  appears  in 
thought  and  action,  as  it  is  organized  in  the  abstract  doc- 
trines of  logic  and  ethics,  In  the  concrete  disciplines  of  art 
and  religion.  Life  cannot  be  avoided,  for  while  humanity 
may  postpone  s(  '  its  problems,  it  Is  impossible  for  man's 

spiritual  nature  to  remain  submerged  In  the  various  forms 
of  faunal  existence. 

In  the  light  of  man's  position  In  the  world  of  nature 
and  spirit,  the  problem  of  human  philosophy  appears  in  firm 
outline.  Philosophy  aims  to  deduce  the  ground  of  the 
world,  and  the  goal  of  human  life;  it  is  guided  by  an  en- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    21 

during  logical  principle  which  here  aims  at  discovering  the 
validity  of  thmgs,  there  is  bent  upon  considering  their  value 
in  the  presence  of  an  ethical  ideal.     Ethics  may  spring  from 
logic,  where  human  morality  in  aligning  the  ideal  appeals 
to  metaphysics  to  authorize  its  action;  or  logic  may  have  an 
ethical  motif  in  and  behind  it,  as  though  man's  quest  of  reali- 
ty were  guided  by  an  assumption  that  what  ought  to  be  is 
In   the   beginning  is  the   thought,   or   the   deed;   particular 
philosophies  must  present  their  respective  claims  for  intellect 
or  will.     But  the  fact  remains  that  man  in  the  realm  of 
nature  and  reason  cannot  accept  off-hand  the  world  of  ex- 
perience, whether  it  consist  of  those  outer  phenomena  which 
make  up  the  natural  order,  or  sucii  inner  ones  as  go  to  show 
the  existence  of  a  subjective  and  spiritual  one.     Humanity  is 
not  found  either  within  or  without,  but  must  be  posited 
by  man   in  the  negation  of  nature  and   the  aflSrmation  of 
spirit ;  in  this  way  the  world  of  immediacy,  whether  physical 
or  psychical,  is  set  aside  for  the  one  world  of  humanity. 

For  a  thorough  consideration  of  the  ethical  problems, 
wherein  neither  moral  casuistry  nor  ethical  culture  shall  ob- 
scure the  august  nature  of  the  question,  something  ontologi- 
cal  must  be  premised,  postulated,  and  continually  Implied 
Man  is  to  be  regarded,  not  in  his  individuality,  but  in  his 
totality;  not  ^        ;  henomenon,  but  as  a  person:  not  as  an 
inhabitant  of  nature,  but  as  a  citizen  in  the  civitas  humanita- 
tts.     Thus  understood,  human  life  will  be  real;  hence  the 
need  of  metaphysical  methods  by  way  of  consideration.     If 
the  good  is  not  a  category,  like  substance,  or  value  a  category 
like  causality,  there  exist  judgments  of  good  and  judgments 
of  value  which  participate  in  reason  as  securely  as  do  those 
logical  judgments  of  reality  and  relation.     These  moral  re- 
lations and   these   ethical   judgments  may   not  adapt   them- 
selves to  reality  in  the  form  of  noumena,  but  their  being 
belongs  to  some  transphenomenal  order,  and  in  the  totality 
of  all  that  exists  there  is  a  place  for  them  in  the  world  of 
humanity.     Now  to  consider  moral  life   in   particular,   we 
must  survey  human  life  in  general. 

No  consistent  ethical  theory  can  be  carried  out,  un- 
less the  manifest  destiny  of  man  serves  as  the  background  of 
the  particular  view  which  is  held.     For  this  reason,  one 


22     VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

cannot  be  a  perfect  hedonist  unless  he  shows  that  humanity 
is  hedonistic,  too.  If  man's  position  in  the  world-whole  is 
a  naturistic  one,  and  his  end  seems  to  consist  in  cultivating 
something  of  immediate  moment,  then  it  is  probable  that  the 
course  of  feelings,  which  are  so  influential  with  men  and  ani- 
mals alike,  was  meant  to  occupy  his  attention  altogether. 
Under  naturistic  auspices,  the  end  of  life  may  be  called 
happiness.  Yet  suppose  that  man  was  not  called  unto  a 
concrete  life,  and  was  never  destined  to  realize  his  animality 
as  the  goal  of  his  being?  Rationalism,  too,  has  its  claims, 
and  accordingly  it  surveys  man  sub  specie  boni,  just  as  it 
postulates  the  belief  that  man  was  meant  for  reason  and 
should  submit  to  the  domination  of  an  abstract  ideal.  Both 
of  these  views  have  been  entertained,  and  that  with  no  I'ttle 
zeal  on  the  part  of  their  respective  advocates.  Yet  it  is  rare 
than  an  ethical  theory  sets  out  upon  the  devious  path  of 
moral  philosophy  with  a  just  conception  of  what  man,  its 
subject,  was  meant  to  do.  For  this  reason,  commandments 
to  seek  pleasure  or  to  follow  virtue  are  not  necessarily 
sanctioned  by  the  obvious  plan  of  humanity. 

Ethical  theories  have  made  no  mistake  in  the  choice  or 
treatment  of  certain  leading  functions  in  human  nature; 
they  have  failed  only  in  presenting  these  in  their  integrity, 
just  as  they  have  omitted  to  show  how  these  motives  for 
action  bear  upon  the  whole  problem  of  life.  At  times  we 
are  hedonists,  at  times  intuitionists,  but  we  are  ever  human- 
ists in  our  action.  We  seek  a  form  of  realization  and  pur- 
sue a  course  of  activity  which  shall  be  hedonic  or  rigoristic, 
as  the  circumstances  may  be,  but  within  the  sphere  of  these 
activities  is  found  a  central  impulse  by  which  man  seeks  to 
assert  himself.  Can  the  goal  of  life  be  other  than  the  per- 
fection of  the  species,  or  the  achievement  of  humanity?  On 
the  metaphysical  side,  it  is  vain  to  suppose  that  by  activity 
man  can  become  other  than  human:  hence  an  ethical  theory 
which  advises  animality  or  suggests  that  man  should  adapt 
himself  to  some  angelic  order  is  wanting  in  logical  penetra- 
tion. If  humanity  is  not  an  ethical  category,  like  good-vir- 
tue, right-duty,  it  is  an  original  positing  of  man  without 
which  no  particular  moral  theory  can  be  comprehended. 

Just  as  ethics  must  inquire  concerning  the  total   plan 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    23 

of  life,  so  it  must  also  raise  the  question  whether  man  is  in 
any  wise  realizmg  this.  Ethics  never  proposes  a  new  pro- 
blem, not  does  It  lay  upon  man  any  extra  burden;  so  that 
w-hen  we  see  what  humanity  is  and  long  has  been  doing,  we 
shall  see  likewise,  from  our  ethical  point  of  view,  what  man 
himself  should  do.  Humanity  has  not  waited  for  ethics  to 
deduce  principles  of  pure  morality  or  to  enjoin  abstiact 
commandments ;  its  call  to  work  was  long  since  found  in  it- 
self and  in  positing  its  own  being,  humanity  began  to  do  in 
general  what  a  philosophic  science  like  ethics  now  attempts  in 
particular.  Morality  need  never  urge  man  to  *'act,"  for  the 
surplus  of  humanity  within  him  will  keep  him  in  constant 
activity.  When  ethics  takes  up  its  task  of  classifying  human 
Ideals  and  fortifying  human  motives,  it  finds  humanity,  not 
in  a  dormant  state  as  though  waiting  for  some  ethical  im- 
petus, but  ceaselessly  engaged  in  achieving  its  peculiar  des- 
tiny. For  this  reason,  an  ethical  theory  cannot  make  head- 
way unless  It  take  cognizance  of  man's  inherent  operations 
withm  himself  and  upon  an  all-surrounding  world  of  na- 
ture. 

Man  is  unwilling  to  "accept  the  universe"  or  to  "take 
life  for  granted."     By  him  the  world  of  immediacy  in  both 
physical  and  psychical  forms  is  disallowed.     Human  impulses 
to  pass  from  the  immediate  to  the  ultimate  assume  both  a 
logical  and  an  ethical  form ;  for  the  intellect  as  well  as  the 
will  IS  interested  in  the  plan  which  proposes  to  realize  hu- 
manity,  and    this  cannot   be   done   without   spiritual   effort 
Man  posits  his  humanity  when  he  thinks  correctly  as  when 
he   acts  wisely:   and   whether   intellect   or  will   be   superior 
when  mutually  compared,  the  fact  remains  that  both  rogni- 
tion  and  conation  are  forms  of  activity  which  spring  from 
man  who  sends  forth  these  impulses,  not  merely  for  the  sake 
of  knowing  or  doing,  but  for  the  sake  of  human  realization. 
Fure  cognition  and  pure  moralization  may  be  spoken  of  as 
subjects  of  thought,  but  in  such  abstract  entities,  living  hu- 
manity does  not  participate.     Speculation  and  practice  out- 
do themselves  in  the  service  of  man :  one  constructs  an  ideal 
order  of  thought,  the  other  an  ideal  realm  of  values  wl  ich 
spring  from  the  human  efforts  after  contemplation  and  con- 
quest.    And    where    nature    forms    the    starting-point    and 


24    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

makes  up  the  context  of  these  two  activities,  their  form  and 
purpose  appear  in  the  world  of  humanity. 

2 — THE    STRIVING    OF    HUMANITY    WITH    NATURE 

The  problem  of  life,  however,  consists  in  something 
more  than  the  recognition  of  man's  peculiar  place  in  the  uni- 
verse; it  involves  suitable  reaction  on  his  part,  for  nature 
not  only  afiFords  a  contrast  of  spirit,  but  presents  an  oppo- 
sition which  must  be  overcome.  Phenomena  must  be  or- 
ganized according  to  the  laws  of  the  mind,  while  outer  in- 
citements must  be  reduced  to  genuine  motives.  Man's  po- 
sition immediately  involves  a  problem  engaging  all  the  char- 
acteristic forms  of  spiritual  activity;  and  the  several  forms 
of  human  philosophy  seem  to  have  no  other  purpose  than  the 
establishment  of  a  spiritual  order  as  the  goal  of  human  exist- 
ence. Thought  and  action  do  not  arise  of  themselves  or 
for  their  own  sake;  sentiments  of  taste  and  worship  are  de- 
veloped for  something  more  than  the  satisfying  of  the  aes- 
thetic and  religious  in  man.  All  of  these  forms  of  culture, 
as  they  produced  knowledge  and  virtue,  beauty  and  faith, 
arise  at  the  behest  of  a  self-positing  humanity. 

A — The  Speculative  Striving  of  Humanity 

Knowledge  as  such  springs  from  the  human  under- 
standing, just  as  it  is  a  function  put  forth  by  an  ever-striving 
humanity.  While  it  is  vain  for  man  to  attempt  a  com- 
plete solution  of  life's  problem,  which  will  leave  no  mystery 
behind  it,  his  human  limitations  do  not  forbid  his  assertin;! 
that  knowledge  is  a  part  of  his  vocation,  just  as  it  is  a 
phase  of  the  general  plan  of  the  world.  Even  nature, 
which  falls  short  of  humanity,  appears  anxious  to  be  com- 
prehended as  well  as  obeyed,  for  the  perfection  of  the  hu- 
man brain  seems  to  be  a  discernible  object  in  the  world  of 
natural  forms  and  natural  forces.  Human  cognition  is  a 
thorough-going  affair  which,  when  sufficiently  estimated,  re- 
veals the  proportions  of  a  limitless  spiritual  life.  To  ac- 
quire interesting  facts  about  the  external  world,  and  to  leain 
thereby  of  its  laws  and  relations,  is  no  more  the  destiny  of 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    25 

reason  that  the  perfection  of  an  inward  discipline  which 
shall  bespeak  untold  possibilities  of  mere  knowledge.  Far 
better  is  it  to  assume,  in  the  light  of  what  cognition  has 
accomplished,  that  knowledge  consists  in  such  exercise  of 
inner  powers  and  the  discovery  of  outer  forms  that  the 
thinker  finds  his  place  in  the  total  universe.  Inner  process- 
es and  outer  principles  do  not  exist  for  themselves  or  for 
the  sake  of  mere  cognition ;  they  combine  to  assist  man  in  the 
demonstration  of  his  humanity  in  knowledge.  Into  nature 
we  are  put,  not  merely  to  labor  or  to  enjoy,  but  to  learn- 
without  active  intelligence  man  cannot  be  man. 

Now  knowledge  enables  man  to  overcome  nature,  be- 
cause  his  thought   supplies   him   with   evidence  of   another 
world,  the  intelligible  one.     Knowledge  is  more  than  cog- 
nition ;  the  criterion  of  certainty  is  more  than  outer  clearness 
or  inner  synthetic  consistency.     This  is  because  the  general 
bearing  of  knowledge  concerns  man's  work  and  man's  pro- 
blem in  the  world  of  work.     Knowledge  is  made  up  of  ele- 
ments drawn  from  sense  and  deduced  from  the  understand- 
ing, and  the  problem  of  knowledge  is  highly  concerned  with 
outer  facts  and  inner  necessities.     In  view  of  this  dual  phase 
of  our  human  cognition,  can  we  be  blind  to  the  fact  that 
our  whole  being  is  situated  in  the  midst  of  a  confused  na- 
ture—humanity, which  gives  to  life   its  ^roblem  and   pro- 
gram?    These  two  realms,  which  while  distinct  in  quality 
are  yet  capable  of  reconcilation,  envelop  man  and  to  realize 
himself  he  must  reduce  them  to  rational  forms  of  thought, 
with  here  the  claims  of  sense,  and  there  those  of  reason. 
The  cognitive  motive  in  the  view  de  mundi  sensibilis  et  in- 
telhgibihs  cannot  remain  hidden ;  it  is  humanity  asserting  it- 
self in  an  intellectual  way,  as  if  man  were  saying,  (^ivc  me 
understanding  and  I  shall  live.     Knowledge  convinces  man 
that  his  immediate  environment  is  not  final,  and  con^-tructs 
for  him  a  trans-natural  world  of  concepts,  the  counterpart 
of  the  first  world  of  percepts.     By  knowledge  man   is  ex- 
alted, and  the  cognitive  process  emancipates  him   from  na- 
ture which  it  reproduces  \n  mental  fashion ;  meanwhile  posi- 
tive and   negative  forms  of  judgment  afford  a  sure  means 
of  asserting  spirit  and  negating  nature  in  the  world  of  hu- 
manity.    Where  this  process  is  carried  to  the  extremes  of 


a6    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

sophistry  and  skepticism  and  It  is  pointed  out  that  know- 
ledge is  impossible,  since  the  inner  thought  does  not  cor- 
respond to  the  outer  thing,  the  independence  of  intellection 
is  none  the  less  apparent,  for  man  seems  possessed  of  a  life 
of  reason  which  suffers  nothing  by  being  separated  from  the 
world  of  reality.  It  is  in  such  an  intellectual  mood  that 
philosophy  calls  man  the  measure  of  all  things  in  their  being 
or  not-being. 

The  humanistic  element  in  cognition  further  appears  in 
those  distinctions  which,  as  suggested  by  the  conflict  between 
being  and  thinking,  tend  to  relegate  man  to  himself  in  the 
one  world  of  knowledge.  Man's  intellectual  conflict  with 
nature  is  carried  on  by  means  of  an  abiding  contrast  between 
understanding  and  experience,  wherein  all  the  spontaneity 
of  human  cognition  is  pitted  against  the  given  order  of  ex 
pericnce.  Human  knowledge  has  ever  felt  the  competition 
between  inner  and  outer,  in  the  dualism  between  the  world 
of  ideas  and  the  world  of  things,  as  in  the  modern  diremp- 
tlon  of  thought  and  sensation.  At  heart,  this  problem  is 
only  a  phase  of  the  total  human  question  which  asks  how 
and  In  how  far  is  man  to  be  related  to  nature;  and  the 
human  endeavor  to  know  Is  only  an  element  in  the  com- 
plete plan  by  means  of  which  humanity  seeks  to  extricate 
itself  from  the  world,  in  order  that  it  may  pursue  an  inde- 
pendent mode  of  being.  The  metaphysical  side  of  this 
distinction  appears  in  the  separation  of  mind  and  body,  each 
with  Its  peculiar  attributes  or  qualities,  which  make  impossi- 
ble the  identification  of  the  mental  and  corporeal.  Human- 
ity profits  by  this  ontological  separation  of  man  from  the 
corporeal  world  in  which  his  body  participates,  and  the 
life  of  spirit  is  furthered  by  the  consciousness  of  an  in- 
dependent mind  which  carries  on  its  own  process  of  thought. 
From  this  point  of  view,  mentality  Is  the  very  life  of  man. 

While  the  logical  form  of  human  activity  may  seem 
to  have  no  special  bearing  upon  the  ethical  life  of  man,  how- 
ever much  it  may  minister  to  his  being  in  general,  It  Is 
w^orth  while  noting  how  seriousness  of  ethical  consideration 
has  usually  been  accompanied  by  profundity  of  logical  analy- 
sis. In  this  way,  the  course  of  human  thinking  associates 
itself  with  the  conduct  of  life.     Socrates  cannot  quite  perfect 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    27 

his  ethical   maxim   without   a  logical   preliminary  which, 
accordmg  to  the  testimony  of  Aristotle   ( Meta.  i.   6;  xii 
4),  gave  philosophy  the  concept,  in  the  form  of  a  universal 
dehnition  in  morals.     The  moral  origin  of  Augustine  ceases 
not   until   It   has   penetrated   to  the   depths  of   the   soul   in 
search  of  inner  experience  and  will.     With  Kant  the  human 
connection  between  thinking  and  doing  reveals  itself  in  the 
form  of  a  two-fold  critique  which  implies  that  the  category 
of  causal  connection  is  not  distinction  from  the  categorical 
imperative  of   freedom.     Kant  thus  arrives  at  ethics  by  a 
logical  tour  de  force,  and  hesitates  to  assume  the  moral  pro- 
blem until  he  has  found  some  sufl^cient  task  for  the  endless 
striving  of  the  human  will.     Now  the  moral  burden  is  by 
no  means  a  light  one  •  It  is  both  logical  and  ethical,  since  the 
whole   weight   of   reality   rests   upon    the    practical    reason. 
Speculation  shows  how  insufficient  is  the  understanding  to 
penetrate  the  veil  of  phenomena,  and  it  is  only  by  means  of 
a  translogical  method  that  man  comes  abreast  of  the  real 
order.     Perverse  as  this  method  may  be,  Kant,  with  these 
representatives  of  ancient  and  mediaeval  life,  does  not  fail 
to  show  how  the  question  of  the  deed  concerns  that  of  the 
thought.     Over  both  will  and   intellect  is  the  overarching 
humanity  which,  while  not  independent  of  them,  Is  superior 
to  them.     Thought  may  sometimes  depend  upon  experience 
sometimes  upon  understanding,  but  always  upon  man  him- 
self, the  thinking  person;  humanity  is  greater  than  thought. 

B — The  Aesthetic  Impulse  of  Humanity 

Upon  the  artistic  side  of  his  nature,  man  reveals  the 
same  striving  for  humanity,  only  here  its  ardent,  humanic 
qualities  show  mor-e  convincingly  how  man  himself  has  en- 
tered into  the  problem  of  his  own  being,  which  is  not  left  to 
the  abstractions  of  either  logical  law  or  ethical  precept. 
Man  s  world  must  be  in  keeping  with  his  character,  hence 
he  cannot  remain  upon  the  plane  of  nature,  absorbed  in  sen- 
suous intuition,  and  occupied  with  objects  of  immediate 
moment.  He  must  be  human,  and  the  call  to  humanity  is 
one  which  is  caught  up  by  aesthetics  as  well  as  by  logic  of 
the  human  understanding.     In  that  play  of  spirit  which  art 


28    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

ever  indulges  in,  there  is  manifest  the  motive  to  excel  na- 
ture  and   perfect  her  forms.     As  the  scientific  significance 
of  phenomena  begins  to  appear  when  the  facts  of  nature  are 
reduced   to  law,   so  their  artistic  import  is  disclosed   when 
the    creative    spirit    of    humanity    reduces    them    to    order, 
wherein  tones  are  put  into  a  scale  and  colors  into  a  scheme 
of   harmony.     Nature   is  seen   in  the  landscape,   while   hu- 
manity  appears  symbolically   in   the   human    form.      Mean- 
while the  treatment  of  nature  is  now  more,  now  less,  intre- 
pid than  in  the  case  of  cognition,  where  sensible  effects  in 
nature  are  reduced  to  convenient  mental  abstractions,  service- 
able for  thought  yet  never  free  from  snare.     In  all  art  a 
metaphysical  murmur  may  be  heard.     Art  begins  with  the 
sensuous  forms  of  the  natural  order  and,  to  whatever  abyss 
of  human  contemplation  these  may  be  sunk  when  observed 
bv    a    form-genius    like    Angelo    or    a    tone-genius    like 
Bcc    oven,  they  return  to  the  world  of  experience  in  appro- 
priate  perceptible  forms;   for  where  science  is  abstract  art 
is  intuitive  and  perceptible. 

In  the  midst  of  aesthetic  intuition,  which  plays  so  ef- 
fectively with  the  forms  of  nature,  the  dominant  human 
quality  of  art  must  suffer  no  concealment.  Man  it  is  who, 
dissatisfied  with  mere  nature,  however  glorious  the  infinite 
order  of  sensible  forms  may  be,  retreats  to  the  very  depths 
of  his  humanity  only  to  return  with  visions  of  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth.  Like  logic,  with  its  categories,  art  exists 
for  the  sake  of  man  whose  child  she  is,  whose  image  she 
bears;  she  arises  from  no  imitation  of  nature,  but  springs 
spontaneously  from  a  self-emancipating  humanity.  It  is  the 
inner  essence  and  non-utilitarian  character  of  art  which  re- 
veal anew  the  human  source  of  beauty;  nature  herself  is 
innocent  of  this  impulse  on  the  part  of  man  to  assert  himself 
as  human,  and  she  lends  her  properties  of  time  and  color, 
of  form  and  light,  without  knowing  how  man  will  transform 
them  into  an  art  which  is  truly  human.  So  far  as  aesthetics 
is  concerned,  the  fate  of  humanity  consists  in  surmounting 
nature  in  the  interest  of  a  unified  spiritual  life. 

Like  the  source  of  art,  the  world-order  of  beauty  is 
to  be  found  in  humanity.  The  usual  order  of  perception 
and  action,  which  are  made  necessary  by  man's  participation 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    29 

in  the  world  of  nature,  does  not  forbid  forms  of  extranatural 
thought  and  deed  which  are  constantly  revealed  in  artistic 
creation.     As  a  result,  two  possible  realms  are  disclosed  to 
human   existence:   the   world   of   nature   and   the   order   of 
culture.     Man  needs  somewhat  more  than  a  habitat  which 
cannot  contain  or    ,       t  his  spiritual  nature;  he  must  have 
more  than  cnviror  :       t,  and  thus  he  creates  the  world  of 
culture   as   his  sovereign   domain   of   spiritual   life.     Hence 
it  becomes  more  than  merely  suggestive  that  man,  while  in 
nature    is  destined   to  strive   for   humanity  as   the   obvious 
goal  of  his  activity.     This  does  not  make  it  impossible  to 
raise  the  questions,  whether  man  was  meant  for  culture  and 
whether  he   is  justified   in  pursuing  a  remote  object  in   a 
natural  life  like  his  which  is  so  replete  with  objects  of  im- 
nicdiate  moment;  but  the  fact  remains  that  man  has  attempt- 
cd  the  life  of  culfiire.  and  counsels  to  return  to  nature  and 
maxims  which   i    ,   i,,fy  immediacy  cannot  ignore  the   fact 
that  man  is  bent  .pun  an  independent  and  internal  humanity. 
I  he  subtle  conflict  of  art  with  nature  is  more  likely 
to^  convince  one  of  the  ceaseless  striving  of   humanity  to 
exist,  when  it  i^  noted  how  naturistic  is  the  form  of  that 
art   which    seek,    uic    redemption    of   man.     Art    does    not 
imitate  nature,  but  repeats  her  lesson  in  a  more  appropriate 
fashion;  art  does  not  exist  that  it  may  exert  a  moral  in- 
fluence, because  ethics  should  take  care  of  itself;  it  exists 
for  the  sake  of  humanity.     Thus  we  may  depart 'from  the 
metaphysico-moral   view  of   antique   criticism,   which   knew 
only  the  norms  of  imitation  and  utility,  and  as  moderns,  see 
how  our  humanity,  which  needs  no  outer  percepts  or  inner 
utilities,  puts  forth   art  as  a  means  of  self-realization   and 
proof  of  human  superiority.     Perhaps  man,  in  his  philoso- 
phy, his  art,  his  religion,  is  self-illusioned,  and  in  his  mental 
blindness  persists   in   self-stupefaction   through  culture,   but 
fhp   obvious  plan  of  history  leads  man  away  from  nature 
self-existent  humanity,  and  the  data  which  serve 
ior  an  ethical  theory  of  man  are  drawn  necessarily  from  a 
transphenomenal        Im  of  being  wherein  knowledge  takes 
the  place  of  impression  and  art  plays  the  part  of  nature. 


30    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

C — The  Religious   Affirmation    of   the   Soul. 

Further  insight  into  the  life-problem,  which  so  stands 
in  need  of  systematization,  is  afforded  by  the  striving  con- 
sciousness of  man  within  the  precinct  of  religion.  Here, 
the  departure  from  nature  is  more  abrupt  while  the  approach 
to  humanity  is  more  intimate  than  in  the  case  of  either 
logic  or  aesthetics.  Knowledge  gives  laws  to  natural  pheno- 
mena and  is  content  to  reveal  its  supremacy  in  an  implied 
and  passive  manner;  for  knowledge  has  nothing  creative 
about  it.  This  element  appears  in  art,  which  is  not  satisfied 
with  purely  critical  efforts,  but  seeks  to  produce  something 
new.  Yet  in  all  its  work,  aesthetics  does  not  bring  out 
that  seriousness  which  ever  accompanies  the  determined 
efforts  that  man  makes  toward  self-emancipation.  Of  all 
these  moods,  religion  is  the  most  affirmative  and  seems  to 
stand  out  in  sublime  isolation  among  the  attempts  at  human 
self-expression.  Where  man  manifests  a  definite  concern  for 
the  one  problem  of  his  being,  and  longs  to  witness  the 
transmutation  of  immediate  nature  into  ultimate  humanity, 
he  will  find  in  religion  an  ally  without  superior  in  the  world 
of  culture. 

The  method  which  religion  employs  renders  it  a  fit 
interpreter  of  humanity  as  well  as  a  faithful  agent  of  its 
destiny;  it  is  the  polemical  one  in  which  all  the  forces  of 
spirit  are  evoked  for  the  sake  of  emancipating  man.  Re- 
ligion can  hardly  help  negating  the  world  and  man's  life  in 
nature.  The  Tao  reduces  all  being  and  doing  to  nothing; 
Vedanta  recognizes  naught  but  the  Self;  Christianity  finds 
in  the  world-whole  ro  values  at  all  when  compared  with 
the  personal  principle  in  man.  Yet  the  factor  that  religion 
should  emphasize  is  not  the  denial  of  nature,  which  is  so 
scientifically  exact  and  aesthetically  fit,  but  the  affirmation  of 
humanity  which  is  destined  to  out-top  the  universe  and  exist 
in  and  for  itself.  It  is  in  behalf  of  the  soul  that  religion  comes 
forth,  and  while  the  same  striving  for  humanity  appears  in 
the  categories  of  cognition  and  the  intuitions  of  aesthetics, 
the  religious  affirmation  of  humanity  does  not  rest  until 
it  has  disclosed  the  idea  of  God,  wherein  it  reposes.  Reli- 
gious consciousness  thus  makes  it  impossible  to  believe  that 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    31 

nature  can  contain  the  being  of  man  or  satisfy  his  ideals,  and 
the  central  impulse  on  the  part  of  the  soul,  by  which  it 
seeks  to  posit  itself  is  reinforced  by  this  particular  form  of 
human  culture.  Human  cognition  and  human  art,  which, 
as  concept  and  idea,  transcend  the  vvorld  of  time  and  space, 
unite  with  human  worship  in  revealing  the  one  world  of 
humanity  within  man. 

While  religion  sustains  the  same  general  relation  to 
the  world  and  humanity  as  appears  in  logic  and  aesthetics, 
it  accentuates  the  peculiar  problem  of  life  by  emphasizing 
the  personal  principle  in  man.  In  a  certain  sense,  thought 
goes  on  and  taste  simply  expresses  itself;  indeed,  judgments 
of  truth  and  beauty  are  most  nearly  perfect  when  they  are 
impersonal.  Religion  finds  its  center  in  the  ego  which  is 
the  most  satisfactory  conception  of  the  soul.  As  a  result, 
it  is  the  soul  which  confronts  the  universe  and  maintains 
its  personal  quality  so  supremely  that  the  Upanishads  make 
the  world  equivalent  to  the  soul,  while  m  the  Gospels, 
the  whole  of  nature  is  somewhat  inferior  to  the  personal 
ego.  Under  such  treatment,  the  general  principle  of  human- 
ity receives  a  more  acute  form  since  it  is  identified  with 
that  inner,  personal  consciousness  which  each  may  feel  for 
himself.  In  this  exalted  frame  of  mind,  the  seer  finds  him- 
self in  the  world-whole  "The  Infinite  indeed  is  below, 
above,  behind,  before,  right  and  left — it  is  indeed  all  this. 
Now  follows  the  explanation  of  the  Infinite  as  the  I :  I  am 
below,  I  am  above,  I  am  behind,  before,  right  and  left — I  am 
all  this."      (Khandog>a-Upanishad,  vii.  25). 

Not  only  does  the  personal  principle,  in  the  perfected 
religions  of  spirit,  afford  a  clear  contrast  between  nature 
and  humanity,  but  it  also  indicates  a  sufficient  reason  for 
the  individual's*  striving  toward  that  human  goal.  Every 
form  of  human  religion  which  comes  to  the  point  whence 
it  can  discern  the  presence  of  humanity  in  the  world  of 
nature,  invests  the  soul  with  a  peculiar  value.  This  being 
done,  it  is  no  longer  necessary  to  make  metaphysical  distinc- 
tions between  the  being  of  the  world  and  the  essence  of  man, 
but  the  intrinsic  quality  of  humanity  appears  as  soon  as  the 
soul  receives  proper  valuation.  The  ontological  status  of 
the    soul    need    not    be    conceived    in    a    manner    radically 


32    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

dfflFcrcnt  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  but  the  moral  value  of 
the  person  and  his  spiritual  vocation  in  the  world  of  humani- 
ty must  receive  recognition  in  any  system  which  attempts  to 
treat  man  as  such.  In  religion,  man  is  considered  as  pos- 
sessed of  a  quality  so  singular  and  incomparable  that  no 
quantification  of  external  being  can  balance  the  intrinsic 
value  of  the  soul. 

D — The  Ethical  Activity  of  Humanity, 

^        From  this  excursus  into  three  distinct  fields  of  culture 
It    becomes   more    and    more   convincing   that    man    is    not 
satisfied  with  the  given  order  of  reality.     His  world  must 
be  of  an  order  native  to  his  own  being,  for  which  reason 
he  departs  from  nature  and,  by  means  of  culture,  seeks  to 
penetrate  the  world  of  spirit.     How  august  is  the  spectacle 
of  man  awakened  to  the  possibilities  of  his  humanity.       A 
creature   of   nature,    and    possessing   the   usual    qualities   of 
thinghood    he  develops  to  a  degree  of  enlightenment  which 
persuades  him  he  is  superior  to  the  order  which  has  produced 
nim.     His    idealism    spoils    the    universe;    his    art    perfects 
nature ;  his  religion  excludes  the  world  from  the  sphere  of 
value.     The  naturistic  in  man  can  never  account  for  these 
vigorous  negations,  and  it  is  only  when  we  relegate  man  to 
the  genuine  order  of  his  being  that  we  are  able  to  account 
tor  him      As  a  problem,  life  consists  in  adjusting  man  to 
the  world  of  virtue,  of  which  relation  nature  and  humanity, 
or  the  world  of  things  and  the  world  of  persons,  are  placed 
at  proper  poles.     From  the  history  of  human  culture,  philo- 
sophic    artistic,  religious,  we  sec  how  determined  man  is  to 
posit  his  humanity ;  for  in  the  striving  toward  this  goal  he 
has  aroused  all  his  human   faculties  for  the  purpose  of  a 
concentrated  deed. 

When  the  human  calling  of  man  is  appreciated,  it 
will  appear  that  the  moral  incentive  is  not  the  only  one 
which  influences  his  activity;  indeed,  virtue  is  not  the  leading 
motive  in  the  struggle  for  humanity.  It  is  needless  to 
command  man  to  act ;  while  he  lives  he  will  be  active  in  a 
life  which  goes  on  of  itself.  The  ethical  phase  of  human 
existence  and  the  moral  adjustment  of  man  to  humanity, 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    33 

while  not  at  all  inferior  to  the  logical,  aesthetical,  and 
religious  correlations,  must  not  be  made  equivalent  to  human 
life  as  such  nor  comparable  to  the  pursuit  of  its  perfection. 
One  need  not  wish  to  limit  the  sphere  of  ethics  to  declare 
how  subordinate  to  the  totality  of  life  is  the  abstract  moral 
commandment.  The  view  of  life  which  we  moderns  have 
entertained  has  been  thrown  of?  its  centre  by  an  artificial 
moralism  which  dominated  the  central  impulse  toward  hu- 
man self-affirmation.  In  the  real  presence  of  life,  ethical 
theory  retreats  to  the  background,  while  victorious  humanity 
posits  itself  in  all  the  rich  manifold  of  its  content.  Man 
was  made  for  humanity,  and  morality  was  made  for  man. 

Like   the   other  three   phases  of   human   striving,   the 
ethical  assumes  its  proper  place  when  it  it  related  to  the 
unitary  deed  of  mankind  in  his  constant  struggle  for  humani- 
ty.    In  this  central  stream  are  four.d  f\\t  mingling  of  real 
and  ideal,  of  nature  and  rea^n,  of  deed  and  thought,  and 
in  the  midst  of  all  I»  that  great  world-movement  which 
consists  in  adjusting  an  animal  to  a  higher  and  spiritual  order 
of  life.     Fro'n  the  view-point  of  the  one  life-problem,   it 
appears  that  .Ktion  is  capable  of  other  than  purely  ethical 
forms  of  discussion,  although  the  moral  side  of  life  is  so 
imminent  and  the  argument  for  it  so  convincing  that  the 
view  of  life  which  is  usually  entertained  is  the  ethical  one. 
Man  will  set  reason  at  naught  and  become  agnostic,  but 
will  he  defy  conscience  and  become  unethical  ?     There  is  a 
natural  prejudice  in  favor  of  the  moral  side  of  human  striv- 
ing, and  as  long  as  our  discussion  of  the  ethical  does  not 
commit  the  fallacy  of  accident,  this  preference  for  the  moral 
may  be  indulged.     Over  the  other  phases  of  human  culture, 
ethics  has  a  certain  advantage  and,  if  we  are  to  name  the 
genus  from  the  leading  species,  it  is  best  to  choose  the  moral 
as  the  typical  phase  of  human  striving.     Cognition,  while 
it  has  about  it  no  more  abstractness  than  is  found  in  the 
formal  view  of  the  ethical,  has  a  constant  bearing  upon  outer 
nature  of  which  it  is  knowledge  and  theory.     Ethics,  which 
is  normative  and  critical  to  a  degree  which  places  it  side 
by  side  with  logic,  differs  from  this  philosophic  science  by 
sustaining  and  abiding  references  to  man  to  whom  it  dictates 
laws  of  conscience  as  logic  gives  to  nature  laws  of  causality. 


34    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

Of  the  other  two  phases  of  spiritual  life,  which  affiliate  In 
their  participation  in  humanity,  aesthetics  is  too  sprightly 
in  its  methods  to  become  a  rival  of  logic,  while  religion  is 
such  an  interested  spectator  in  the  plan  of  life  that  it  cannot 
offer  the  cool  presentation  of  the  problem  which  ethics  essays 
to  furnish. 

Life  is  not  ethics,  but  the  philosophy  of  life  is  capable 
of  the  most  consistent  presentation  when  it  is  surveyed  in 
the  light  of  moral  categories.  Humanity  is  the  major  premise 
in  an  argument  where  ethics  is  the  minor.  It  is  the  ethical 
conciousness  of  man  which  makes  it  possible  for  him  to 
survey  his  nature  and  consider  his  destiny  in  philosophic 
fashion.  This  is  not  to  be  understood  as  though  it  meant 
that  man  can  use  ethics  to  solve  problems  which  are  logical, 
aesthetical,  or  religious;  for  in  this  respect  ethics  is  no  route 
royale.  Plato  surveys  beauty  and  Kant  truth  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  good,  and  their  aesthetics  and  logic  arc 
in  so  far  imperfect.  The  application  of  the  good  is  to  life 
in  general,  not  to  some  other  discipline  which  possesses  a 
method  of  its  own.  Hence  it  is  best  to  adjust  ethical  science 
to  the  goal  of  life  itself;  morality  may  never  give  us  truth, 
or  beauty,  or  worship,  but  it  may  reveal  human  destiny  and 
for  this  reason  it  is  to  be  pursued  as  a  fruitful  form  of 
philosophic  study. 

Theoretical  ethics  and  practical  morality  are  now  in  a 
condition  where  they  need  readjustment  to  the  central 
question  of  life  itself.  For  the  accomplishment  of  this  task 
there  must  be  elaborated  a  view  which  shall  appreciate  the 
reality  of  life  and  the  formality  of  ethics.  Like  logical 
laws  in  themselves  indispensable,  moral  maxims  are  ever 
critical  and  normative;  they  make  possible  the  function  of 
reflection,  but  something  by  way  of  content  must  be  furnished 
by  humanity  itself.  Rationality  and  morality  have  done 
nothing  positive  for  the  emancipation  of  man  from  nature: 
one  has  kept  watch  over  the  world,  the  other  over  man  in  the 
constant  adjustment  of  these  two  phases  of  reality  to  each 
other.^  But  the  constructive  work  of  humanity  has  been 
done  in  an  artistic  and  religious  fashion.  Living  and  think- 
ing are  the  foci  of  humanity,  not  mere  existence  or  mere 
consciousness  as  these  arise  in  nature.     Where  ethics  and 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    35 

logic  elaborate  characteristic  judgments  they  lack  the  crea- 
tive power  peculiar  to  religion  and  art  which  antedate  them 
in  time  and  excel  them  in  influence.  With  only  a  general 
reference  to  morality  and  rationality,  our  human  institutions 
arise  as  free  contributary  acts  on  the  part  of  nature  burdened 
as  it  is  by  an  excess  of  conscious  life.  This  excess  is  human- 
ity. 


II 


THE  CONTINUITY  OF  HUMAN  STRIVING 

I — THE  CATEGORY  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

The  first  moment  in  the  life  of  our  humanity  is  found  m 
an  impulse  toward  spiritual  self-assertion ;  the  final  one  ap- 
pears in  the  organization  of  man  into  a  world  of  humanity. 
In  order  to  unite  these  widely  separated  elements  of  a 
philosophy  of  life,  it  becomes  necessary  to  assume  a  mean 
principle  which  shall  look  upon  human  striving  in  its  con- 
tinuity while  it  makes  possible  the  construction  of  an  order 
of  human  life.  This  uniting  principle  is  found  in  history, 
the  very  vehicle  of  humanity.  In  order  to  adjust  our  human 
striving  on  the  one  hand  and  the  fixed  order  oi  humanity  on 
the  other  to  one  and  the  same  principle  of  history,  it  becomes 
necessary  to  view  such  history  as  both  changing  and  con- 
tinuous, a  condition  of  spiritual  life  wholly  in  keeping  with 
the  general  nature  of  consciousness.  Thus  considered,  his- 
tory includes  ideas  no  more  paradoxical  than  the  general  lite 
of  man  as  a  spiritual  creature :  they  are  those  of  progress  and 
permanence,  and  in  their  ultimate  imprint,  they  effect  a  re- 
conciliation of  the  temporal  and  eternal  in  the  life  of  man- 
kind. Through  this  progressive  change  and  permanent  con- 
tinuity man's  self-positing  may  be  systematized. 

When  we  seek  to  relegate  ethics  to  history,  we  must 
qualify  our  claims  to  avoid  the  false  idea  suggested  by  the 
term  ''history  of  ethics",  for  no  such  thing  exists.  As  logic 
is  but  the  abstract  method  according  to  which  we  arrange  our 
outer  impressions,  so  ethics  is  only  an  ideal  way  of  construct- 
ing our  inner  feelings  and  impulses,  and  neither  the  logical 
nor  the  ethical  in  humanity  assumes  the  positive  and  progres- 
sive form  recognizable  in  art  and  religion.  Implicit  in  all 
activity,  the  ethical  does  not  find  expression  in  the  shape  of 
institution,  but  ever  remains  as  a  formal  view  of  human  con- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    37 

duct  which  is  carried  on  according  to  more  vital  principles. 
To  state  this  essential  truth  of  the  abstract  nature  of  ethics, 
one  may  further  assert  that  the  moral  in  man's  will,  like  the 
logical  in  his  understanding,  has  nothing  phenomenal  about 
It,  and  it  is  only  in  connection  with  the  phenomenal  that 
history  can  enter  in.  Yet  our  present  consideration  involves 
the  whole  question  of  life,  and  wc  are  using  the  ethical 
method  of  consideration  because  it  makes  possible  the  cat- 
egories of  value  and  dignity;  and  this  human  life  has  had 
a  history  which  ethics  can  employ  in  arranging  its  theories 
according  to  a  plan.  Then  the  general  principle  of  human 
striving  objectified  in  art  and  religion  may  be  reviewed  from 
the  analytical  standpoints  of  logic  and  ethics. 

2 — THE    ETHICAL   MOMENT  IN    HISTORY 

While  human  history  is  indicative  of  a  force  which  ever 
carries  man  forward,  it  further  fulfills  its  office  by  conserv- 
ing the  past  in  memory,  so  that  the  progress  of  man  is  never 
wholly  free  from  the  rudimentary  forms  of  his  earth-life.    As 
a  creature  of  the  natural  order,  man  is  destined  to  affirm 
himself   as   spiritual,   a   performance   making   human  .living 
and  thinking  a  unique  combination  of  the  low  and  the  high. 
Man  never  becomes  wholly  denaturized,  nor  does  his  life 
consist  in  a  decisive  affirmation  of  one  phase  of  life  and  the   * 
negation  of  another.     For  this  reason,  it  is  unwise,  to  con- 
trast sense  and  spirit  in  man  as  though  they  were  upon  the 
same  level;  by  their  very  nature  they  adjust  themselves,  not 
horizontally,  but  vertically  in  accordance  with  the  progress 
of  man  from  nature  to  reason.     The  love  of  pleasure  and 
the  love  of  virtue  may  have  their  place  in  one  and  the  same 
human  heart,  but  their  position  is  not  of  the  same  ethical 
dignity.     Hedonism    is   native   to   man    and    the   argument 
against  it  is  not  a  sweeping  affirmation  or  negation,  but  a 
critical  exposition  pointing  out  the  degree  of  sufficiency  in- 
herent in  the  view.     Hedonism  is  naturism  in  an  immediate 
form  of  consciousness;  but  life  consists  of  the  culture  of 
something  remote. 

•     i^*^c  ^°^  ^lesitant  is  the  spirit  of  humanity  to  reveal 
Itself.     Sufficient  is  it  for  us  to  know  that  we  were  destined, 


38    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

not  for  nature,   but  for  culture  and   the  eternally  human. 

The  mystery  of  the  soul  is  as  great  as  the  mystery  of  the 

world :  they  are  the  same,  and  we  are  as  far  from  knowing 

what  to  do  as  we  are  from  knowing  what  to  think.     To 

follow  the  real  in  the  form  of  immediate  desire  is  natural 

and  objectively  necessary,  but  who  will  believe  that,  having 

done  this,  we  have  done  all?     To  pursue  the  rational  in  the 

form  of  duty  is  apparently  safe,  but  it  is  not  an  intelligent 

way  of  living,  nor  does  it  account  for  many  a  performance 

m  art,  religion,  and  the  social  world  that  man  is  called  upon 

to  undertake.     No  great  amount  of  light  is  cast  upon  the 

J)roblem  of  life  by  the  past,  for  we  know  as  little  of  what 

man  has  done  as  of  what  he  should  do.     But  if  the  idea  of 

continuity  is  valid,  man  has  been  asserting  his  humanity  in 

contrast  to  an  otherwise  enveloping  natural  order. 

In  the  midst  of  this  universal  striving  for  both  being  and 
consciousness,  humanity  has  preserved  its  unity  and  has  not 
been  betrayed  by  history.     From  the  beginning,  it  has  been 
the  history  of  humanity  as  such,  and  whether  upon  a  low 
plane  or  a  high  one,  man  has  ever  been  man.     Hedonically 
viewed,  man  seeks  himself  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure;  from 
the  rigoristic  standpoint,  he  asserts  himself  by  means  of  duty; 
while  in  humanism  he  is  afforded  a  more  consistent  mode  of 
self-expression.     On  the  historical  side,  these  three  forms  of 
soul-life   represent   so   many  stages   in   the   development   of 
humanity.     Where   there   was  naturism,   man   sought   him- 
self in  the  guise  of  a  nature-moralist  who  found  his  being 
circumscribed   by  pleasure-pain;   upon   the   plane  of   ration- 
alism a  sterner  type  of  self  appeared  in  the  form  of  a  doer  of 
duty;  and  thus  between  these  two  phases  of  human  being, 
man  himself,  rather  than  his  sensations  or  his  ideas,  was  con- 
stantly made  the  subject  of  his  own  activity.     As  long  as 
there  have  been  feelings,  thoughts,  and  intuitions,  there  have 
been  unconscious  hedonists,  rationalists,  and  humanists,  and 
historical  development  in  the  world  of  culture  produces  its 
most  characteristic  effects  in  bringing  instincts  into  conscious- 
ness. 

History  when  viewed  from  within  involves  somewhat 
mc-e  than  origin  and  progress;  there  is  the  spirit  of  an  eter- 
nal humanity  which  ever  broods  over  this  continuous  effort 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    39 

to  be,  just  as  there  is  made  possible  a  participation  in  the  one 
humanity  of  the  world.  In  action  the  individual  stands 
alone,  separated  from  past  and  future  by  his  own  epoch; 
in  thought  he  is  united  with  the  wholeness  of  humanity 
where  no  temporal  distinctions  are  valid.  Hence  the  com.- 
mandment  of  Schleiermacher :  IVirkt  auf  die  Einzelnen,  aber 
mit  euer  Betrachtung  hebt  Euch  auf  den  Flugeln  der  Reli- 
gion hoher  zu  der  unendlichen  ungetheilten  Menscheit, 
{Reden  Uber  Religion,  ii.  s.  90.)  When  thus  regarded, 
history  contains  no  longer  the  demons  of  origin  and  develop- 
ment which  have  ever  disturbed  our  modern  rationalists  in 
morality.  Verily,  we  know  that  the  moral  began  and  in 
continuous  fashion  grew  into  a  gradual  perfection;  and  now 
we  know  that  its  history,  instead  of  being  a  hindrance,  was 
an  aid  to  its  purpose.  There  was  history  in  religion  and 
history  in  art,  and  thus  the  complete  history  of  mankind  can 
only  point  out  how  virtue  and  conscience  gradually  dawned 
upon  the  sensitive  mind  of  a  spontaneous  nature-being  which 
was  in  process  of  perfection. 

Our  ideals  are  saved  by  virtue  of  that  continuity  which 
invests  all  human  progress:  it  is  the  one  humanity  which 
everywhere  asserts  itself  against  the  entirety  of  the  objective 
order.  In  this  world  of  humanity,  the  individual  naturally 
participates.  For  where  else  could  he  be  found  ?  When 
the  oneness  of  humanity  and  the  integrity  of  the  individual 
are  assured,  the  plan  of  history  facilitates  the  purpose  of 
the  moral  reason.  Man  is  destined  for  morality;  but  this 
same  man  is  an  animal,  and  the  ideas  of  virtue  and  duty  will 
dawn  upon  him  gradually.  He  has  the  capacity,  and,  since 
the  goal  of  his  human  striving  is  so  remote  from  his  im- 
mediate condition,  continuous  efforts  with  approximations  to 
perfection  must  enter  in  as  stages  of  preparation  for  man  in 
his  human  education.  History  thus  becomes  the  adjunct  of 
humanity,  and  the  chasm  between  nature  and  spirit  is  bridged 
by  the  plan  of  human  progress.  It  is  the  historical  view  of 
humanity  which  invests  the  individual  with  his  proper  uni- 
versality, and  the  continuity  of  human  progress  is  an  order 
of  things  without  parallel  in  the  universe.  Where  the  prin- 
cipium  individuationis  tends  to  isolate  the  individual  and 
thus   reduce   his  spirithood   to   thinghood,   and   where   mere 


40    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

evolution  would  obliterate  personality  altogether,  the  history 
of  humanity  acts  as  tv  xat  ttcIk  f or  it  adjusts  the  indivi- 
dual to  his  human  realm  in  a  manner  which  does 
violence  to  neither  the  particularity  of  the  one  nor  the  uni- 
versality of  the  other.  For  man,  the  history  of  humanity 
assumes  the  form  of  one  personal  present,  in  which  indi- 
viduals among  men,  and  single  periods  in  history  sustain  an 
essential  relation  to  the  permanent  goal  of  humanity. 

3 — THE    HISTORICAL   VIEW    OF    ETHICS 

In  the  midst  of  this  general  plan  of  human  history,  the 
position  of  ethics  is  not  the  same  as  that  of  either  rights  or 
religion.      1  hese  forms  of  culture  and  civilization  represent, 
not  merely  human   instincts,   but  social   institutions  which 
assume  perceptible  forms  in  architecture  with  its  court  and 
temple,  in  literature  with  its  statute  and   precept.     Ethics 
accompanies  these  developments  and  ever  exercises  a  critical 
function  upon  them,  but  in  itself,  it  sustains  a  derivative 
relation   to  human  progress,  which  goes  on  in  some  other 
than  an  intellectual  fashion.     Much  the  same  may  be  said 
ot  logic  whose  judgments  are  concomitant  with  the  develop- 
ment of  humanity,  without  sustaining  any  influential   rela- 
tion to  living  mankind.     While  the  development  of  religion 
and  rights  has  been  manifold  in  form  and  rich  in  content, 
the  evolution  of  ethics  and  logic  has  been  like  the  growth  of 
the  mulberry  tree,  which  after  lying  dormant  for  a  long 
period,  puts  forth  its  buds  spontaneously.     In  the  antique 
period,    speculation    produced    the    concept    and    judgment; 
modern  phi  osophy  has  witnessed  the  distinction  of  enTpirical 
and  rational  forms  of  knowledge.     At  the  same  time,  ethics 
discovered  an  ancient  good-virtue  and  a  modern  right-duty. 
a  we  add  to  these  concepts  an  ancient  feeling  of  eudaemonic 
and  a  modern  sense  of  conscience,  we  shall  have  reviewed  the 
Imtory  of  our  morality,  around  which  various  theories  have 

The  history  of  ethics  is  well  nigh  contradictory  in  termi- 
nology, and  the  only  sense  with  which  it  may  be  i  ivested  is 
a  schematic  one  whose  reality  ever  depends  upon  the  absorb- 
ing history  of  humanity.     Man  is  destined  to  pass  through 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    41 

certain  stages  of  development  in  the  progress  toward  his 
humanity,  and  this  plan  of  advancement  and  his  own  evolu- 
tion will  consist  in  something  more  than  doing  certain  deeds 
and  undergoing  certain  experiences:  it  will  involve  a  change 
of  view,  with  respect  to  both  himself  and  the  world.  And 
this  change  of  view,  which  is  as  truly  human  as  the  con- 
tinuity of  doing  and  suffering,  involves  the  abstract  sciences 
of  logic  and  ethics.  The  canons  of  speculation  and  the 
norms  of  conduct  have  a  place  in  the  continuity  of  human 
striving,  but  it  is  incomparable  with  the  solid  position  of 
human  rights  and  religion  which  make  up  the  bulk  of  actual 
living  and  guide  mankind,  not  by  ideals  of  validity  of 
thought  or  value  of  action,  but  by  external  authority  and 
tradition.  Reason  and  conscience  relate  to  humanity,  not 
only  occasionally,  but  in  a  negative  fashion,  where  the 
theological  traditions  of  the  race  are  opposed  by  pure  specu- 
lation, and  legal  standards  are  offset  by  ideal  maxims  of 
morality.  Therefore,  it  may  be  said,  the  form  of  logic-ethics 
is  that  of  ratio  essendi  and  ratio  cognoscendi,  while  that  of 
religion-rights  is  ratio  agendi  and  ratio  fiendi. 

Where  humanity  has  had  a  history,  there  ethical  science 
has  undergone  change;  new  categories  of  thinking  and  new 
ideals  of  striving  have  entered  as  the  invariable  accom- 
paniments of  man's  positive  progress.  The  passivity  of  the 
east  differs  from  that  of  the  west;  antique  formalism  with 
its  classic  finish  is  not  the  same  as  modern  dynamism  which 
is  accompanied  by  romantic  striving.  Ethics  exhibits  a 
major  history  in  outline,  but  not  a  minor  history  in  detail. 
"Fixed'*  stars  move,  although  not  in  planetary  fashion,  and 
the  grand  development  of  humanity  makes  room,  at  rare 
intervals,  for  some  sort  of  ethical  and  logical  mutation. 

History  has  not  yet  adjusted  its  considerations  to  the 
ideality  of  time  and  space;  its  methods  involve  paradox  as 
soon  as  they  are  applied  to  the  evolution  of  the  human  spirit. 
Our  own  employment  of  history,  to  introduce  moral  ideals 
in  a  systematic  fashion,  needs  only  to  concern  the  continuity 
of  humanity  in  the  midst  of  its  several  attempts  at  self-reali- 
zation. If  history  emphasizes  the  circumstantial,  it  can  only 
end  in  a  view  of  ethical  relativity  which  sacrifices  all  ideal 
worth  in  human  activity.     But  if  it  uses  continuity  as  its 


42    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

ground,  and  keeps  before  It  the  Implicit  goal  of  all  human 
self-positing,  it  can  survey  man  upxDn  the  original  plane  of 
naturistic  self-assertion  and  in  the  midst  of  temporarily 
hedonic  impulses  the  central  impulse  will  still  stand  out. 
Nature  may  not  be  relied  upon  but  man  in  nature  may  be 
trusted  with  his  human  dignity. 

When  history  is  idealized  and  removed  from  the  pheno- 
menal order  of  time  and  place,  its  adaptability  to  spiritual 
life  will  appear  and  assume  a  convincing  form.  Only  hu- 
manity knows  history;  only  humanity  progresses.  And  it  ia 
the  inwardness  and  unity  of  spiritual  life  which  render  to 
humanity  the  means  of  progress.  Time  is  not  the  only,  nor 
the  essential,  element  in  progress;  it  Is  but  the  sign  of  that 
real  and  inner  change  which  makes  reality  what  it  is.  The 
same  sun  passes  over  a  tribe  of  nature-peoples  and  a  society 
of  men  who  are  tending  toward  civilization,  but  the  lapse  of 
a  thousand  years,  or  less,  will  find  the  one  group  in  the 
same  condition  of  savagery,  while  the  other  has  undergone 
those  changes  which  are  incident  upon  culture.  Time-pass- 
age has  been  accompanied  by  real  change  in  the  one  and  by 
no  progress  in  the  other,  and  the  essence  of  history  now 
appears  to  reside  in  something  other  than  time.  In  the 
employment  of  the  same  temporal  element,  one  age  will 
advance  in  science  and  morals  while  another  will  stagnate. 
Shall  we  say  that  this  is  because  time  Is  now  more,  now  less, 
lenient  with  humanity?  or  shall  we  seek  the  cause  within 
and  find  in  the  spontaneous  life  of  the  solrlt  a  force  which 
is  put  forth  in  a  quasi-temporal  way  in  the  endeavor  on  the 
part  of  humanity  to  posit  itself?  History  appears  as  an 
eternal  order  in  which  all  forms  and  degrees  of  humanity 
participate,  and  the  successive  attempts  which  man  makes  in 
his  progress  toward  human  perfection  find  their  unity  in  the 
common  world  of  humanity  and  history. 

It  is  evident  that  history  has  laid  hold  of  man  and 
under  Its  influence  he  is  urged  forward  whence  he  knows 
not.  The  half-inscrutable  purpose  of  the  world  has  not 
remained  aloof  from  consciousness,  although  no  systema- 
tic view  of  human  striving  has  appeared.  Perhaps  it  is 
the  will  of  humanity  which  invests  man  and  Infuses  the 
sense  of  striving  within  him,  without  Informing  him  as  to 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    43 

the  purpose  of  his  life.  Were  we  intended  to  employ  our 
human  time  in  sheer  nature  fashion?  Or,  again,  are  we 
wise  in  attempting  a  life  according  to  reason  in  the  frigid 
zone  of  abstraction?  Are  we  justified  in  attempting  a 
transmundane  form  of  existence  In  the  world  of  culture, 
the  world  of  worship,  the  world  of  humanity?  To  these 
questions  history  has  given  some  general  answers  by  pointing 
out  how  man  has  departed  from  nature  for  the  purpose  of 
discovering  and  developing  his  inner  humanity,  although 
this  world-movement  was  not  completed  in  primitive  times 
nor  has  it  ever  been  universal  in  days  of  perfected  culture. 
In  different  ages,  individuals  and  groups  of  individuals  have 
advanced  beyond  both  nature  and  society  In  their  pursuit  of 
the  self-sufficient  goal  of  life,  so  that  history  rises  before  us 
as  a  pyramidal  edifice  narrowing  as  it  ascends.  Nevertheless, 
the  sense  of  our  human  life,  though  dawning  gradually 
through  the  haze  of  our  nature-life,  has  ever  been  an  object 
of  in*-2rest  and  now  It  seems  impossible  for  man  to  escape 
froM  humanity. 


4 — THE  STAGES  OF  HUMAN  HISTORY 

In  addition  to  the  general  plan  of  historical  continuity, 
uniting  man's  inner  striving  with  the  outer  organization  of 
this  in  a  world  of  humanity,  there  appear  certain  marked 
stages  of  development,  according  to  which  humanity  assumes 
something  more  than  one  simple  form.  If  the  ethical  life 
abides  in  all  history,  special  ethical  methods  should  appear 
in  these  definite  stages  of  human  development;  for  the  fluid 
nature  of  humanity  does  not  fail  to  crystallize  in  a  charac- 
teristic manner,  so  that  the  enlightened  moralist  may  behold 
the  problem  of  life  to-day  in  the  plan  that  humanity  has 
chosen  for  its  development.  The  historical  present,  when 
analyzed,  becomes  a  cross-section  of  all  human  life,  and  the 
past  becomes  a  parable  unfolding  to  us  the  depths  of  our 
own  moral  being.  To  assume  full  cognizance  of  the  human 
spirit  in  its  progress  is  to  run  Hegel's  risk,  but  this  romantic 
philosophy  of  history  Is  not  the  only  one  that  has  found  some- 
thing dialectical  In  humanity,  nor  is  his  three-fold  scheme  of 
arrangement    something   solitary   in   the   history   of   human 


44    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

speculation.  The  number  three  has  no  special  sanctity,  and 
the  method  of  contradiction  is  not  ever  convincing;  but  the 
analysis  of  humanity  may  reveal  triple  types  which  can  be 
elaborated  without  the  magic  of  the  Hegelian  dialectic.  But 
since  our  object  is  to  use  history  only  to  corroborate  the 
general  plan  of  a  three-fold  humanistic  system,  we  are  not 
likely  to  be  ensnared  in  the  net  prepared  in  our  very  sight. 
Our  object  is  to  observe  the  results  of  human  history;  the 
process  is  another  consideration ;  and  since  the  connection 
between  ethics  and  history  is  so  slender,  we  need  only  glance 
at  what  the  latter  suggests.  The  perfected  philosophy  of 
the  Indo-Graeco-Germans  does  not  fail  to  apprise  us  that 
our  humanity  advances  from  nature  to  spirit  by  the  inter- 
vention of  a  rational  mean  thus  giving  us  three  types  of 
humanity.  In  themselves  these  may  be  called  ( i )  The 
Naturistic,  (2)  The  Characteristk,  (3)  The  Humanistic, 
corresponding  to  the  ethical  theories  of  hedonism,  intuition- 
ism,  and  humanism. 

Though  the  great  World-Spirit  «eems  hesitant  to  reveal 
itself  to  the  sons  of  men,  something  like  a  plan  appears  in  the 
past  achievements  of  the  human  race,  and  while  we  cannot 
assume  that  the  Infinite  Being  adopted  the  methods  of  Trans- 
cendentalism, the  general  outline  of  a  three-fold  form  of 
development  may  be  made  out.  Man  is  passing  from  his 
origin  in  nature  to  his  goal  in  the  world  of  spirit ;  meanwhile 
he  is  developing  truly  human  character.  Thus  appear  three 
forms  of  life.  In  the  first,  man  lives  the  life  of  nature  and 
knows  only  the  guidance  of  fate;  in  the  second,  his  civiliza- 
tion and  culture  determine  him  to  life  by  means  of  law; 
finally,  he  attains  to  freedom  in  the  inner  kingdom  of 
humanity.  Nature  no  longer  contains  him,  for  he  has  come 
into  his  own  inner  life.  When  ethics  reviews  the  field  of 
history  thus  divided,  it  is  able  to  see  how  its  views  of  hedon- 
ism, intuitionism,  and  humanism  have  their  origin  in  the 
three  types  of  life  unconsciously  assumed  by  man  in  his  pro- 
cession on  high.  It  is  to  be  expected  that  the  consciousness 
of  humanity  in  man  should  be  accompanied  by  a  presentiment 
of  this  general  scheme. 

About  the  earliest  attempt  to  effect  a  classification  of 
men  was  made  by  Kapila  in  his  Sankhya  philosophy.     Where 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    45 

the  Vcdanta  Identifies  man  with  the  world  through  the  one, 
objective  Self,  the  Sankhya  approaches  this  gradually  by  in- 
terposing grades  of  perfection  which  result  in  certain  classes 
of  men  possessing  three  qualities  or  "Gunas."  These  act 
like  cords  binding  man  down  to  certain  stages  of  being.  The 
lowest  is  Tamas  Guna  of  sense;  the  next  highest,  Rajas 
Guna  of  will;  the  highest,  Sattva  Guna  of  thought.  (Cf. 
Aphorism  61.)  Thus  appear  three  kinds  of  knowledges: 
good  knowledge  which,  coming  from  Sattva  Guna,  enables 
one  to  behold  the  one  entity  in  all  things;  passionate  know- 
ledge due  to  Rajas  Guna  and  making  one  perceive  only 
difference  In  the  manifold;  and  dark  knowledge  of  Tamas 
Guna  which  adheres  to  one  single  object  as  though  it  were 
the  whole.  As  knowledge,  so  also  action ;  good  action  is 
devoid  of  attachment,  passionate  action  is  egoistic,  dark 
action  Is  all  delusion.  Further  appear  three  grades  of  in- 
telligence in  action,  where  Sattva  Guna  shows  just  what 
should  be  done,  while  Rajas  Guna  affords  no  correct  view 
of  piety,  which  latter  is  ever  misunderstood  by  the  man  of 
Tamas  Guna.  Finally,  the  three  Gunas  produce  three 
kinds  of  happiness.  The  highest  kind  of  happiness  comes 
not  immediately,  but  demands  patient  repetition,  while  at 
first  as  unwholesome  as  poison,  it  ends  In  that  nectar  which 
proceeds  from  the  clear  knowledge  of  self.  Passionate  hap- 
piness is  sensuous  and  of  sudden  origin,  and  while  at  first 
It  Is  like  nectar,  It  finally  turns  to  poison.  The  happiness 
of  Tamas  Guna  deludes  the  self  at  both  the  beginning  and 
end  of  Its  course. 

Before  Plato  had  perfected  a  political  system  based  upon 
a  three-fold  view  of  man  and  nature,  Aeschylus  discovered 
the  steps  the  gods  had  taken  in  declaring  their  law  unto 
men.  First  appeared  the  prophetess  primeval;  then  Themis, 
or  rectitude,  who  finally  gave  place  to  Phoebus,  the  god  of 
spiritual  knowledge  (Eumenides,  1-9.)  Plato's  system  un- 
ifies physics  and  politics  upon  the  basis  of  a  triple  scheme  of 
division.  In  the  lowest  order  are  found  body,  soul, 
mind, — cwfia,  ^XV,  ^^^  whose  human  counterparts  appear  as 
appetite,  desire,  reason, — €7ridv/LiaTtKdv,  ^v/xotScg,  Xoyto-Ttxov. 
Upon  this  foundation,  the  philosopher  erects  an  ethlco- 
political  system  whose  virtues  of  temperances,  courage,  wis- 


46    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

donfij — (TU)<l>po<rvvr}^  avBpia,  (ru}<f>ta  growing  out  of  the  fore- 
going elements  in  the  macrocosm  and  microcosm,  culminate 
in  three  classes  of  men  in  the  ideal  republic.  These  are  the 
artisans,  soldiers,  rulers, — xP^fuiTto-Tat,  crrtKovpot,  apvovm 
among  whom  the  philosophers  take  the  highest  place.  The 
inability  of  Plato  to  relate  the  virtue  of  justice  to  his  re- 
public only  reveals  the  firmness  with  which  he  adhered  to 
the  triunic  order  of  his  anthropocosmology. 

Gnosticism  reveals  the  same  conception  of  a  triple  order 
of  humanity,  as  shown  by  the  mystical  system  of  Valentinus. 
Here  the  division  is  carried  out  uninterruptedly  through  na- 
ture, man,  and  Deity,  for  there  are  three  gods,  rptU  Ocov^ 
three    minds,    t/d€is    vovs,    and    three    kinds    of    men,   rptU 
avSpw-rrovs.    The  three  orders  of  men  will  be  seen  to  corre- 
spond  to  the   Gunas  of   Kapila  and   the  classes  of   Plato. 
From  the  Deity  emanate  a  series  of  eons  as  so  many  mani- 
festations of    His   abysmal   being   participating   in   the   one 
Being  according  to  different  grades  of  spiritual  perfection: 
pneumatical,  psychical,  hylical.     Hence  arise  three  kinds  of 
men  and  three  classes  of  people.     The  vAtxot  being  the  lowest 
in  grade  are  not  distinguishable   from  the  material  world, 
and  thus  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  attain  to  any  degree  of 
purity  or  blessedness.  The  xItvo-lkol  while  superior  to  the  hy- 
lical men,  are  not  ot  themselves  immortal  nor  are  they  able 
to  comprehend  celestial  affairs;  knowledge  and  eternal  life 
are  possible  for  them  only  as  they  assume  the  powers  and 
virtues  of  the  pneumatic  men.    The  irvevfmTLKoi  possess  germs 
of  divine  life  and  reflect  the  glory  of  God  in  the  world  of 
created   things.     Upon   this  psychological   basis,   Valentinus 
seeks  to  outline  a  philosophy  of  history  in  which  Pagans  as- 
sume the  lowest  position  of  hylical  men,  Jews  the  next  rank 
of  the  psychical,  while  the  highest  order  of  the  frvcvfrnrucoC 
is  reserved  for  those  who,  redeemed  from  the  flesh  and  the 
low,  have  become  Christians. 

A  similar  conception  of  mankind  appears  in  Vico  Scienza 
Nuova  where  the  triple  order  of  mankind  is  put  upon  a 
more  consistent  historical  basis.  Surveying  the  "ensemble  de 
la  societe'*  as  Michelet's  translation  expresses  it,  Vico  notes 
three  periods  in  the  development  of  humanity,  as  well  as  three 
characteristic  groups  of  rights  and  governments.     The  prim- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    47 

itive  man  possessed  neither  the  idea  of  humanity  nor  the  in- 
stinct to  promote  it,  and  in  his  civilization  and  culture  he 
was  hardly  removed  from  nature.  His  temperament  was 
poetical,  while  his  philosophy  was  of  a  theological  order, 
hence  his  idea  of  rights  involved  the  notioi)  of  privilege  and 
his  government  was  theocratic.  Second  in  order  comes  the 
heroic  age  whose  idea  of  rights  was  interpreted  in  terms  of 
force  whence  was  erected  an  aristocratic  form  of  govern- 
ment, and  in  civilization,  law,  and  language,  mankind  was 
heroic.  The  culmination  of  human  progress  is  attained  when 
the  moral  nature  succeeds  the  poetic  and  sensuous  orders,  and 
government,  no  longer  theocratic  or  aristocratic,  becomes 
democratic,  while  law  and  language  become  humanized. 

Schiller's  conception  of  human  history  resembles  the 
schemes  of  Valentinus  and  Vico,  while  his  view  of  the  soul 
reminds  one  of  Kapila  and  Plato.  He  conceives  of  man 
as  being  made  up  of  the  extremes  of  sense  and  reason,  de- 
pending upon  his  real  being  in  the  world  and  his  ideal  char- 
acter in  ethics.  Between  these  extremes  plays  the  art-instinct 
upon  which  is  based  the  aesthetical  education  of  mankind. 
In  his  progress  toward  perfection,  man  passes  through  a 
sensuous,  an  aesthetical,  and  an  ethical  period,  his  develop- 
ment being  furthered  by  the  medium  of  art  as  it  unites  the 
material  period  at  the  beginning  with  the  moral  one  at  the 
end.  For  this  office,  art  is  specially  fitted,  since  it  possesses 
a  sensuous  quality  while  not  wanting  in  spiritual  signifi- 
cance, and  promotes  a  form  of  pleasure  not  wholly  alien  to 
man's  ethical  interest.  With  this  general  conception  of 
progress,  Schiller  endeavors  to  classify  various  forms  of 
humanity,  but  does  not  seem  to  preserve  the  consistency  of 
his  aesthetic  system.  In  the  essay  on  "Grace  and  Dignity" 
he  seems  to  place  humanity  above  the  perfection  of  sense  in 
grace  and  the  realization  of  reason  through  dignity,  while 
the  "Letters  on  the  Aesthetical  Education  of  Mankind," 
tends  to  change  the  order,  so  that  the  art  of  humanity  as- 
sumes the  second  place  while  man's  moral  perfection  takes 
the  highest  position.  Yet  the  poet-philosopher  realizes  that 
there  is  a  vast  gulf  between  the  ideal  essence  of  humanity 
and  its  realization  in  life,  just  as  he  considers  history  to  be 
the  means  of  bringing  about  the  unity  of  the  human  spirit. 


48    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

In  our  own  age,  this  triple  scheme  reappears  in  Ibsen's 
Emperor  and  Galilean,  where  the  "Third  Empire"  of  the 
future  takes  the  place  of  spiritual  Christianity,  just  as  the 
latter  supplanted  sensuous  Paganism. 

5 PHASES  OF  THE  MORAL  LIFE 

All  the  systems  of  speculation  examined  above  agree  in 
their  classification  of  men;  the  modern  ones  put  this  upon 
a  historical  basis  whereby  they  show  how  man  has  passed 
from  a  condition  of  nature-life  through  a  period  of  conflict 
to  a  spiritual  goal  in  the  world  of  humanity.  The  one 
humanity  in  its  fusion  of  sense  and  spirit  thus  exhibits  three 
stages  of  progress:  a  preliminary  one,  where  it  simply  rests 
in  the  lap  of  nature;  a  perfect  one  where  it  reposes  in  the 
world  of  spirit;  between  these  a  long  and  restless  age  of 
conflict  finds  man  seeking  to  adjust  himself  to  the  lower  and 
higher  orders  within  him.  But  in  the  process  of  humanizing 
man  the  ideal  is  not  so  far  removed  from  experience  that  it 
cannot  be  an  object  of  inquiry  or  of  practical  endeavor,  and 
the  Indo-Graeco-Germanic  orders  of  spiritual  development 
occasionally  reveal  this.  Thus  Kapila  postulates  Sattva- 
Guna  as  the  finest  human  quality  while  Plato  puts  his  philo- 
sophers at  the  head  of  the  ideal  Republic.  Valentinus  sees 
history  culminating  in  the  production  of  pneumatic  men, 
while  Vico  and  Schiller  outline  history  in  such  a  way  that 
the  age  of  humanity  crowns  all  spiritual  development.  So 
far  as  the  actual  development  of  humanity  is  concerned  the 
three  stages  involved  seem  to  include  (i)  an  indefinite  age 
of  naturism,  (2)  a  period  of  moralism  making  up  most  of 
the  actual  history  of  man,  and  (3)  an  age  of  humanism  be- 
longing almost  wholly  to  the  future.  The  philosophy  of 
ethics  has  unconsciously  followed  such  a  plan  in  outlining 
its  ideals ;  at  any  rate  it  has  emphasized  the  first  and  second 
forms  of  conduct  and  has  further  suggested  a  reconciliation 
in  the  form  of  a  common  view  of  life. 

The  systematic  determination  with  which  man  asserts 
his  humanity  makes  the  traditional  study  of  ethics  seem  in- 
eflScient;  it  assumes  too  much  and  attempts  too  little  in  the 
way  of  a  philosophy  of  life.     From  significant  glimpses  into 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    49 

his  history,  man  seems  intent  upon  asserting  his  spiritual 
humanity  over  against  his  natural  animallty,  and  the  length 
of  the  process,  marked  as  this  is  by  successive  endeavors  and 
gradual  approximations  to  the  ideal,  indicates  how  central 
and  absorbing  the  problem  of  humanity  Is  to  mankind.  Just 
as  the  end  of  human  life  cannot  be  seen  by  the  primitive  man, 
so  its  ideals  cannot  be  realized  by  him.  A  cumulative 
movement  thus  becomes  necessary  and  having  turned  away 
from  nature,  man  must  similarly  oppose  the  nature-like  type 
of  culture  which  has  constituted  the  second  stage  of  his 
evolution.  As  blind  force  and  unthinking  sense  must  give 
way  before  the  ideas  of  law  and  understanding,  so,  finally, 
must  these  be  supplanted  by  the  notion  of  f4reedom  and  spirit- 
ual culture.  The  savage  is  not  man,  nor  yet  the  indivi- 
dualist of  an  age  characterized  by  national  ideals ;  both  must 
abandon  the  field  to  the  humanist  who  sees  the  unity  of  man- 
kind, and  aims  at  the  community  of  culture. 

Modernism,  whose  current  decadence  is  so  lamentable, 
does  not  fail  to  reveal  the  significance  of  the  tripartite 
scheme.  Our  naturalism,  which  unites  the  data  of  sense 
with  the  elements  of  desire  to  form  the  ideal  of  immediate 
existence,  is  not  wholly  unlike  the  primitive  stage  of  man- 
kind, represented  by  Tamas-Guna  and  hylical  men  of  orien- 
tal thought,  or  the  more  loftly  estimates  of  naive  and  poetical 
peoples,  suggested  by  Vico  and  Schiller.  Rationalism  and 
rigorism  become  the  second  stage,  which  in  the  eastern  mind 
was  characterized  by  passion  and  activity  of  life,  while  with 
Plato  and  Vico  it  assumed  an  heroic  form.  The  third 
theory  is  the  prototype  of  an  age  hardly  yet  realized ;  hence 
we  cannot  use  the  definite  terms  of  Sattva-Guna,  the  **philo- 
sophoi",  which  appeared  so  clearly  to  Kapila  and  Plato,  but 
must  follow  our  moderns  and  outline  in  general  an  era  of 
humanity,  in  which  life-values  are  set  in  a  new  light,  and 
the  end  of  human  existence  more  adequately  represented. 
Here  the  particular  method  is  the  ethical  one,  which  repro- 
duces the  three-fold  scheme  in  the  order  of  a  Hedonism,  a 
Rigorism,  and  a  Humanism. 

These  terms  indicate  a  clearer  form  and  a  richer  content 
than  our  particular  ethical  theories  bring  out ;  they  stand  for 
types  of  life  which  pervade  the  individual  and  guide  the  race 


50    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

in  its  development.  There  is  something  hedonic  in  all  men 
and  the  desire  for  happiness  in  the  sense  of  immediate  pleas- 
ure is  as  natural  as  breathing.  Hedonism  has  an  equally 
secure  place  in  the  race,  and  at  the  primitive  period  of  man's 
existence  external  interests  were  so  imminent  that  utility 
masked  all  the  other  functions  of  the  human  spirit.  Rigorism 
connects  itself  with  a  perod  of  social  history  where  individual 
nations  impress  upon  their  citizens  the  character  of  an  im- 
perative principle.  Our  "intuitions"  are  the  survival  of  an 
imperious  age,  which  began  and  ended  in  authority.  Obliga- 
tion, law,  duty,  autonomy  are  the  fibrous  elements  of  an 
historic  type,  rationalistic  and  rigorous  in  every  detail.  The 
humanic  ideal  belongs  to  the  morality  of  the  future.  Itself 
a  synthesis  of  natural  hedonism  and  stern  voluntarism,  it 
preserves  the  vital  elements  of  human  conduct  in  the  midst 
of  worthy  ideals.  As  the  race  abandons  blind  nature,  and 
withdraws  also  from  a  regime  of  "blood  and  iron,"  which 
regards  man  as  a  "political  animal,"  it  approaches  a  human- 
istic ideal,  the  consciousness  of  which  finds  its  way  into  the 
minds  of  the  representative  thinkers  of  modernism,  just  as 
some  inkling  of  it  was  felt  by  Sanskrit  and  Grecian  philo- 
sophers, at  the  culmination  of  their  respective  epochs.  Kapila's 
derivation  of  a  third  order  of  life  was  realized  by  Gautama, 
whose  humanitarian  system  is  not  without  relation  to 
Sankhya;  Plato's  highest  type  of  men  was  reflected  by  the 
Stoics,  the  original  humanists  of  Europe. 

In  modern  times,  traditional  moralism,  such  as  has  grown 
up  in  England,  between  the  physico-political  systems  of 
Hobbes  and  Spencer,  has  screened  from  the  contemplative 
spirit  the  totality  of  life  wherein  the  meaning  of  human 
existence  is  to  be  found;  nevertheless  there  have  been  ex- 
ceptional moments,  when  isolated  thinkers  have  risen  above 
the  petty  quarrels  of  the  schools,  instances  of  this  superiority 
being  found  in  Shaftsbury  and  Adam  Smith.  With  a  few 
such  exceptions,  the  modern  ethical  writer  has  been  a  mere 
theorist,  who  has  been  adroit  in  the  use  of  casuistical  device, 
but  weak  in  the  employment  of  philosophical  principle.  Not 
life  according  to  theory,  but  theory  according  to  life — such  is 
the  only  safe  method  of  procedure.  Let  culture  and  human- 
ity transcend  our  modern  scholasticism!     Before  this  hope 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    51 

can  be  realized,  it  is  not  out  of  place  to  conclude  this  intro- 
ductory division  with  the  observation  that  there  is  nothing 
extraordinary  in  the  three-fold  view  of  human  nature,  which 
will  be  pursued.  Not  only  practical  philosophy,  but  specu- 
lative thinking  also,  makes  headway  by  distinguishing  be- 
tween sense  and  understanding,  between  empirical  and  ra- 
tionalistic modes  of  thinking;  and  where  the  philosophic 
program  culminates  is  in  the  adoption  of  a  third  principle, 
like  that  of  reason,  which  surmounts  the  realm  of  under- 
standing as  the  latter  transcends  the  world  of  sense.  The 
possibility  of  a  third  type  of  thinking  and  living  is  here  to 
be  investigated  in  connection  with  a  philosophy  of  life. 


Ill 


THE  WORLD  OF  HUMANITY 

J — HUMAN    STRIVING   Al'.D    HISTORICAL    PROGRESS 

The  individual  impulse  toward  self-assertion  and  the 
social  instinct  for  the  self-positing  of  humanity  have  only  one 
end  in  view;  it  consists  in  postulating  and  perfecting 
a  world  of  humanity.  This  world  is  an  inner  ont.  As  the 
world  of  nature  is  known  by  its  forms  and  revealed  through 
its  development,  so  the  world  of  humanity  appears  in  indivi- 
duals and  is  carried  out  in  human  history.  If  the  world  is 
not  a  man,  humanity  is  a  world-order,  and  it  is  the  cosmic 
quality  in  man  which  enables  him  to  comprehend  the  totality 
of  the  world  in  its  forms  and  values.  Nature  is  nothing  to 
nature,  but  she  is  everything  to  man  who  seeks  her  as  the 
correlate  of  his  own  being:  where  she  has  universality  he 
has  inness,  and  the  union  of  the  two  brings  about  the  human 
world  as  an  order.  Humanity  cannot  exist  apart  from  in- 
dividuals, nor  can  individuals  exist  apart  from  humanity. 
Man's  participation  in  the  human  order  is  dependent  upon 
the  unity  of  spiritual  life  which  hovers  over  all  persons  but 
settles  upon  the  few.  "They  that  are  awake,"  said  Heracli- 
tus,  "have  one  world  in  common — hxi  kol  kolvov  Koa-fxov — but 
every  one  of  those  who  sleep  turns  aside  unto  a  world  of  his 
own."  (95.)  And  it  is  the  common  world  of  awakened 
human  beings  which  establishes  the  one  order  of  humanity. 
With  the  animal,  as  with  the  nature-man,  no  such  world-life 
is  possible  in  either  action  or  consciousness;  but  where  cul- 
ture enters  in  man  emerges  from  the  night  of  his  isolation 
and  enters  upon  his  humanity. 

At  the  outset,  man  seems  farther  removed  from  systema- 
tic life  than  the  lower  orders  of  being,  since  he  is  marked  by 
individuality,  which  makes  his  general  humanity  less  ap- 
parent than  the  animality  of  the  beast,  where  the  type  is  the 

52 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    53 

salient  principle.  For  this  reason,  it  becomes  necessary  to 
evince  the  concept  man,  the  idea  of  whose  being  has  so  long 
been  taken  for  granted;  only  as  we  understand  our  subject 
may  we  assume  to  dictate  concerning  his  conduct.  Was 
man  made  for  desire,  for  duty,  or  for  some  other  ideal  of 
life?  These  questions  lie  on  the  table  until  we  begin  to 
understand  man's  destiny  in  the  world  of  nature-spirit. 
Man's  mind  humanizes  him:  culture  and  civilization,  which 
arc  the  inner  and  outer  forms  of  life  according  to  humanity, 
show  how  man  is  bent  upon  genuine  conduct  and  in  the  light 
of  human  penchant,  we  must  judge  of  those  moral  systems 
which  survey  him  hedonically  or  as  a  duty-doing  animal. 
Man  makes  his  environment  in  the  mental  act  of  conceiving 
it;  he  sets  for  himself  a  goal  of  his  own  elaboration  and  never 
feels  constrained  to  achieve  the  ideals  of  mere  nature  or  sheer 
reason.  That  which  appears  to  be  the  least  of  his  activities 
and  the  object  of  his  consciousness  is  a  real  order  of  human 
existence — the  world  of  humanity. 

As  human  self -positing  is  directed  toward  human  world- 
hood,  so  the  progress  of  living  humanity  has  no  other  end. 
Humanism  in  both  action  and  reflection  reveals  the  con- 
trast between  nature  and  culture,  between  the  immediate 
interest  and  the  remote  one.  Humanity  is  the  denouement 
of  this  positing  and  this  progress,  and  upon  the  three  stages  of 
human  history  it  becomes  ever  a  clearer  idea  and  a  stronger 
motive.  In  man  the  struggle  to  live  does  not  end  with  life 
nor  confine  itself  to  natural  forces.  There  is  one  grand 
affirmation  of  being  which  Schopenhauer  may  style  *^die 
Bejahung  des  Willens  zum  Leben/'  while  Eucken  calls  it 
'*Der  Kampf  um  einen  geistigen  Lebensinhalt"  Man  strives 
after  humanity  as  the  beast  struggles  for  animality.  Pessim- 
ism may  regard  the  affirmation  of  humanity  as  a  mistake,  but 
the  mischief  has  been  done  and  if  man  cannot  make  a  suc- 
cess of  spiritual  life,  he  has  already  made  a  failure  of  his 
original  animal  existence  and  cannot  return  to  nature; 
hence  progress  is  inevitable. 

The  usual  setting  of  man  is  found  in  nature,  and  the 
prejudice  against  humanity  is  deep-seated.  We  seek  the 
source  of  man  in  sense  or  in  reason,  but  not  in  himself.  Our 
standard  is  ever  an  outward  one  which  has  not  advanced  be- 


54    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

yond  the  Stoical  life  according  to  nature ;  only  in  recent 
times  has  the  life  according  to  humanity  begun  to  receive 
recognition.  When  the  historical  view  of  man  magnifies 
his  individuality  to  something  like  worldhood,  the  contrast 
between  outer  naturistic  facts  and  inner  humanistic  ideals 
becomes  as  clear  in  idea  as  it  is  intense  in  will.  Man  is 
determined  to  become  human,  and  no  goal  in  positive  sense 
or  negative  reason  can  delay  his  activities.  Partial  ethical 
systems,  which  do  not  relegate  man  to  the  world  of  humani- 
ty, do  not  see  that  he  is  not  content  with  mere  obedience, 
but  is  bent  upon  the  positing  of  a  world-order  peculiar  to 
his  human  nature.  The  possibility  of  this  realm  in  human 
experience  has  been  questioned  by  the  mind  which  has  usually 
been  guided  by  the  critical  disciplines  of  logic  and  ethics  and 
not  by  the  creative  forms  of  culture  which  are  yielded  by  art 
and  religion.  In  these  positive  performances  of  the  human 
spirit,  history  is  justified  of  her  children  and  the  affirmation 
of  man's  intrinsic  nature  cannot  be  hidden  in  the  world  o£ 
art  and  the  world  of  worship. 

In  idea,  man  is  coming  abreast  of  that  humanity  which 
already  exists  in  will,  and  he  is  now  ready  to  reduce  to  con- 
templation that  which  has  been  the  object  of  conquest.  The 
old  rationalism,  which  made  man  in  its  own  image,  never 
gave  his  life  a  human  content;  while  the  newer  naturalism, 
which  sought  to  breed  a  race  of  instinct-serving  animals, 
failed  to  invest  him  with  the  form  of  humanity.  Mean- 
while, the  new  age  emerges  from  such  pseudo-modernism 
and  exercises  the  belief  that  man  is  now  himself,  and  at  one 
with  his  humanity.  Rationalistic  duty  has  come  in  for  repu- 
diation; naturalistic  desire  has  met  renunciation,  as  man  sets 
out  for  the  world  of  his  humanity.  Life  is  too  vast  for  such 
boundaries;  too  victorious  for  such  half-hearted,  half-human 
ideals.  Modern  morals  have  revolved  upon  such  poor  pivots- 
that  the  most  obvious  thing  about  man — his  humanity — 
seems  obscure  and  unsafe.  The  world  of  humanity  appears 
dramatic  and  we  cannot  quite  give  up  our  faith  in  the  simple- 
hearted  "free  moral  agent,"  who  had  to  choose  between 
abstract  duty  and  concrete  desire,  between  a  mere  character- 
less "self"  and  an  equally  non-human  "other."  The  com- 
plexity of  life  and  the  richness  of  its  content  demand  the 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    55 

idea  of  actor  rather  than  agent,  and  in  the  failure  of  the 
naturistic  ideals  of  experience  and  understanding,  the  world 
of  humanism  appears  as  man's  true  philosophic  place. 

Metaphysically  constituted  and  morally  constrained,  man 
is  still  a  human  being.  Civilization  and  culture  have  emanci- 
pated him  from  nature,  and  in  the  consciousness  of  free  and 
final  humanity,  ethics  feels  the  need  of  new  methods  and 
new  categories.  The  airless  landscape,  which  found  its 
perspective  in  line  alone,  is  giving  way  to  the  aerial  world 
of  living  contemplation ;  and  the  draughtmanship  which  re- 
lied upon  hard  outline  is  superseded  by  chromatic  composi- 
tion which  assembles  its  objects  synthetically.  Idealism  is 
not  lost  when  art  seeks  nature,  because  now  she  seeks  it  in 
a  form  consonant  with  human  perception;  and  an  ethical 
view  which  looks  for  life  rather  than  line,  for  color  and 
not  mere  form,  is  not  far  from  a  spiritual  view  of  man  as 
human.  Modern  misoneism  is  fading,  and  our  scorn  of 
humanity  passes  w^ith  it.  Nothing  but  world-life  will  satis- 
fy the  aroused  spirit  of  humanity,  and  in  the  light  of  this 
impulse,  which  passes  from  selfhood  to  worldhood,  must  the 
history  of  culture  be  considered.  Both  the  critical  and  con- 
structive forms  of  human  intellectual  activity  are  instructive 
at  this  juncture,  and  when  we  perceive  what  thought  has 
already  done,  we  see  that  the  kingdom  of  humanity  is  at 
hand.  On  the  critical,  logico-ethical  side,  human  thought 
and  action  have  elaborated,  in  idea,  a  realm  peculiar  to  man, 
his  cognition  and  conation;  while,  in  a  positive  fashion,  the 
function  of  the  aesthetico-religious  has  been  to  construct  such 
an  order  in  human  consciousness.  Beneath  and  behind  both 
is  the  one  world  of  humanity. 

2 — THE  WORLD  OF  HUMANITY  IN  THEORY 


Both  thought  and  action  are  guided  by  reason,  hence  this 
reflective  form  of  human  striving  will  assume  a  somewhat 
abstract  character.  Nevertheless,  since  man  is  more  than 
his  mind,  his  rationality  will  appear  in  its  proper  light  as 
something  inferior  to  his  humanity,  and  around  the  borders 
of  logic  and  ethics  extends  the  widening  circle  of  spiritual 
life.      In  logic,  the  validity  of  thought  must  be  determined 


56    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

according  to  a  human  norm;  in  ethics,  the  value  of  ideals 
waits  for  man  to  render  his  decision.  From  both  we  learn 
how  all  human  activity  is  under  the  sway  of  that  central  im- 
pulse to  exist  which  makes  humanity  what  it  is. 

I  The  World  of  Thought,  Reason  is  a  superior  means 
which  man  employs  in  the  assertion  of  his  humanity,  but  it 
is  ever  a  means,  never  an  end.  In  the  order  of  discovery, 
man  may  say,  "I  think,  therefore  I  exist;"  but  in  reality  the 
order  is  reversed;  "I  exist,  therefore  I  think."  Speculative 
thought  arises  within  man  as  something  indigenous  to  his 
humanity  and  not  as  an  extra  product  forced  upon  him  from 
without,  and  for  this  reason,  we  must  abandon  the  notion 
that  thinking  has  a  special  reference  to  nature  as  object  and 
see  that  it  belongs  to  humanity  as  subject.  The  problem  of 
life  is  so  inclusive  that  it  cannot  be  solved  apart  from  mental 
activity,  and  the  rise  of  knowledge  is  a  sign  that  man  recog- 
nizes his  human  vocation  in  the  universe.  In  the  midst  of 
this  intellectual  work,  which  is  included  in  the  total  deed  of 
humanity,  there  is  something  more  than  a  cognitive  impulse ; 
thought  has  a  creative  function  and  assists  humanity  in  con- 
structing a  characteristic  world-order,  distinct  from  the  world 
of  nature.  Human  thinking  has  ever  entertained  the 
thought  that  man  is  not  quite  hemmed  in  by  material  objects 
or  confined  to  the  world  of  percepts.  In  response  to  this 
call  to  humanity,  thought  has  constructed  an  order  of  being, 
too  rare  perhaps  for  human  existence  were  it  the  sole  environ- 
ment of  men,  but  symptomatic  of  that  life-in-itself  that  be- 
longs to  humanity.  The  life  of  contemplation,  which  has 
claims  to  value  in  comparison  with  the  life  of  conquest  or  the 
life  of  enjoyment,  makes  necessary  the  existence  of  a  mental 
realm  in  which  humanity  may  realize  its  calling.  The  major 
history  of  culture  cannot  conceal  the  fact  that  man  has 
thought  and  acted  as  though  there  were  a  world  of  con- 
ternplation  in  which  his  spirit  might  dwell.  Religion, 
philosophy  and  science  have  elaborated  a  cosmos  of  intellect 
as  man's  true  possession. 

Aryan  intellectualism  has  ever  been  nourished  by  the 
hope  of  finding  the  mental  world  of  humanity.  The  Veda 
put  forth  its  plea  in  the  form  of  a  Selfhood  which  was  con- 
ceived of  in  independence  of  the  outer  world  of  sensations 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    57 

and  the  inner  order  of  immediate,  personal  impressions. 
When  the  devotee  is  counseled  to  seek  the  Self,  it  is  not  for 
the  sake  of  any  mere  personal  self -consciousness,  but  in  order 
that  man  may  attain  to  humanity  and  find  his  Self  in  Brah- 
man. This  Self,  in  which  the  contemplative  soul  partici- 
pates, is  one  and  infinite.  A  second  step  toward  the  intellec- 
tual human  order  was  taken  by  Greek  philosophy,  where 
Parmenides  began  a  search  for  pure  Being  as  lo-nv  ctm 
vy^hence  Plato  could  invest  the  same  ontology  with  the  mental 
significance  of  tSca.  Since  the  passing  of  classic  specu- 
lation, the  history  of  philosophy  has  looked  to  antiquity  for 
the  perfection  of  "a  world  of  ideas,"  although  it  has  not  felt 
at  liberty  to  relate  this  notion  to  that  one  progressive  mental 
life  which  is  the  life  of  humanity  itself.  Modern  intellec- 
tualism has  not  been  blessed  with  that  unity  which  pervaded 
the  oriental  sense  of  Selfhood  or  the  classic  conception  of 
mental  worldhood ;  it  has  been  divided  against  itself.  Never- 
theless, humanity  has  not  relinquished  its  demand  for  a 
cognitive  realm  for  man,  nor  has  our  modernism,  with  its 
theory  of  knowledge,  failed  to  respond.  We  have  learned 
to  look  for  knowledge  for  knowledge's  sake,  and  since  this 
ideal  of  pure  cognition  is  directed  away  from  nature,  it  is 
one  approach  nearer  to  man. 

As  Hindoos  and  Greeks  intellectualized  humanity,  so  the 
Germans  have  performed  the  same  service  in  recent  times. 
The  romantic  idealism  which  followed  close  upon  the  Kritik 
reveals  this  mental  freedom  in  a  perfect  degree,  but  even  the 
more  reputable  and  critical  philosophy  of  Kant  and  Schopen- 
hauer carries  out  the  same  idea.  These  realistic  philoso- 
phers contrast  reason  with  both  sense  and  will,  and  in  spite 
of  the  competition  involved,  idealism  reduces  space  and  time, 
substance  and  causality  to  the  mental  order  alone.  The 
truth  of  a  mental  world  for  humanity  is  even  nearer  realiza- 
tion to-day  than  it  was  in  the  naive  assumptions  of  the  Indo- 
Grecians,  and  though  we  know  mor'^  about  nature,  we 
know  more  about  mind,  while  above  both  forms  of  these 
phenomenal  orders  arches  the  one  intellectual  life  of  man. 

The  modern  limitation  of  the  intellect  is  an  advantage 
to  humanity  which  has  itself  set  the  boundaries  of  its  own 
intellectual   activity.     To    feel    the   significance   of   all   our 


58    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

skepticism  it  is  necessary  to  observe  how  mental  limitation  has 
not  been  impressed  upon  man  from  without  as  something 
alien  to  his  nature,  but  inwardly  as  something  allied  with 
the  genuine  nature  of  humanity.  We  know  that  religion  is 
not  all,  that  art  is  not  everything;  we  must  realize  that 
knowledge  too  is  subordinate  to  imperial  humanity.  Man  is 
the  way,  the  truth,  the  life.  Voluntarism,  if  it  has  not  dis- 
lodged intellectualism,  has  shown  that  man  possesses  some- 
thing more  than  mentality,  and  if  we  are  called  upon  to 
admit  that  the  will  is  superior  to  the  intellect,  we  may  com- 
plete the  proposition  by  saying,  man  is  superior  to  will.  It 
is  the  world  of  genuine  humanity  which  encircles  the  world 
as  idea,  and  man's  progress  toward  human  selfhood  has 
simply  made  use  of  several  stages  of  Aryan  intellectualism. 

2  The  Ethical  World-Order.  The  critical  conception 
of  a  human  world-order  which  has  shown  itself  in  pure 
cognition  is  not  wanting  in  a  second  aspect  where  the  world 
appears  in  the  form  of  pure  conation.  Like  logic,  ethics 
cannot  accomplish  its  purpose  without  an  appeal  to  the  on- 
tological;  hitherto,  our  speculative  and  practical  forms  of 
philosophy  have  not  assumed  human  responsibility,  but  have 
satisfied  themselves  with  an  outer  systematic  completeness. 
Morality  belongs  to  man,  and  the  final  appeal  is  not  to  con- 
science, but  to  humanity  itself,  in  whose  behalf  the  sense  of 
approval  and  disapproval  operates.  Morality  is  a  means  to 
the  one  end  of  all  human  striving;  it  serves  man  only  as  it 
16  capable  of  world-significance.  The  immediate  pleasure  of 
the  Cyrenaics  and  the  isolated  virtue  of  the  Cynics  are  in- 
capable of  ruling  man,  who  has  cosmic  elements  in  his 
nature,  and  all  systems  which  have  exerted  sway  over  human- 
ity have  had  something  endless  about  them.  Human  life 
according  to  pleasure  can  never  be  so  cramped,  and  human 
life  according  to  virtue  can  never  be  so  crabbed  that  some 
sense  of  the  totality  of  things  will  not  dawn  upon  the  mind 
and  invigorate  the  will.  Man  cannot  seek  refuge  from 
humanity  in  these  crannies  of  life-philosophy;  he  was  des- 
tined to  attain  to  full  human  being. 

A  strong  Semitic  tendency  has  led  man  to  postulate  an 
ethically  good,  where  the  Aryan  instinct  persuaded  him  to 
premise  a  logically  true.     The  world-character  of  the  good 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    59 

docs  not  seem  to  be  as  evident  as  the  cosmic  conception  of 
ideas  as  reals;  nevertheless  the  practical  belief  in  the  supre- 
macy and  permanence  of  righteousness  can  have  no  other 
meaning.  Israel  had  no  such  philosophy  as  India  developed, 
but  it  was  possessed  of  an  enduring  moral  belief  which  has 
accomplished  as  much  in  the  actual  life  of  humanity.  In- 
deed, is  not  Hebraism  as  strong  to-day  as  Hellenism?  The 
world  of  forms,  which  envelops  human  thinking,  is  no  more 
august  than  the  world  of  values,  which  encompasses  the 
human  will.  In  this  way,  it  comes  about  that  there  is  an 
ontology  of  doing  as  well  as  of  thinking;  for  there  are 
metaphysical  elements  in  ethics  as  well  as  in  logic.  Such 
has  been  the  appreciation  of  Semitism  to  modern  philosophy, 
and  the  enduring  instinct  to  obey  has  assumed  an  appro- 
priate cosmic  form.  The  result  has  been  the  elaboration  of 
a  moral  world-order,  self-constituted  and  self-contained. 
Ethics  has  been  made  more  than  a  critical  norm ;  it  has  taken 
on  content  and  reality.  In  this  way,  the  good  has  been 
treated  as  real  in  the  midst  of  its  ideal  form. 

Not  only  the  general  problem  of  the  good  inclines  philo- 
sophy to  invest  its  categories  with  cosmic  significance,  but 
special  ethical  problems  seem  incapable  of  presentation,  much 
less  solution,  upon  any  other  basis  than  that  of  a  spiritual 
order  of  humanity.  As  an  example  of  this,  we  may  cite  the 
case  of  moral  consciousness  in  man,  in  whose  mind  it  assumes 
the  form  of  a  not-thou,  whence  proceed  all  moral  command- 
ments. Man  may  have  demeaned  himself  slavishly  toward 
the  moral  ideal,  and  submitted  to  conscience  and  duty  with- 
out asking  why;  but  that  only  shows  how  he  has  endowed 
the  ethical  with  worldhood,  while  failing  to  invest  himself 
with  selfhood.  The  modern  man's  knowledge  has  seemed 
too  great  for  his  understanding,  his  duty  too  vast  for  his 
will.  Moral  sense  has  been  a  world-consciousness,  in  which 
the  idea  of  the  good  received  a  real  content.  Upon  the 
eudaemonistic  side,  the  result  has  been  the  same;  the  will 
in  its  ever-increasing  demands  has  created  a  world-order  of 
well-being  in  the  form  of  universal  happiness.  This  stands 
out  in  the  mind,  not  merely  as  a  possibility  which  the  in- 
dividual may  realize,  but  as  an  actuality  toward  which,  so 
ran   the  optimistic   argument,   mankind   was  ever   tending. 


6o    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

Man  has  sought  cither  to  satisfy  the  world  or  to  have  the 
world  satisfy  him;  here  it  has  been  a  duty-debt  which  he 
owed  the  universe,  there  it  has  been  a  desire  which  he  would 
have  that  universe  satisfy.  It  has  been  a  Semitic  pragmatism 
which  sees  no  purpose  in  the  world  but  a  practical  one;  it 
relates  to  the  contemplative  world-order  only  upon  the 
quantitative  side  of  universality.  But,  in  the  midst  of  this 
remote  epic  existence,  man  has  within  him  a  lyrical  life, 
which  makes  possible  a  more  vital  view  of  his  humanity. 

3 — POSITIVE  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD  OF  HUMANITY 

From  the  foregoing,  it  will  be  seen,  how  our  thought 
strives  to  fortify  the  idea  that  man's  genuine  life  is  lived  in 
a  realm  which  is  not  materialistic,  but  humanistic.  This 
conviction  was  clarified  by  a  view  of  human  thought  and 
action,  whose  bases  appeared  to  consist  in  something  universal 
and  necessary.  Neither  outer  facts  nor  inner  percepts  can 
account  for  human  knowledge;  neither  outer  incentives  nor 
inner  motives  can  explain  human  action.  To  premise 
humanity  is  to  postulate  the  world  in  which  it  is  realized. 
This  august  truth  is  not  unnoticed  in  art  and  religion,  which 
may  lack  somewhat  of  the  penetrating  metaphysical  exact- 
ness of  logic  and  ethics,  but  which  atone  for  this  weakness 
in  form  by  a  richness  of  positive  content  whereby  the  reality  of 
the  human  world-order  becomes  more  credible.  Both  art 
and  religion  possess  perceptible  forms  which  make  up  a 
world  of  beauty  and  world  of  worship;  and  clothed  upon 
with  these  intuitions,  culture  takes  its  place  in  contrast  to 
nature. 

I  The  World  of  Culture.  In  both  the  ancient  form  of 
objective  beauty  and  the  modern  principle  of  subjective 
taste,  the  reality  of  the  aesthetical  has  ever  made  its  presence 
felt.  The  source  of  beauty  is  within  man  who  possesses  a 
sensitivity  which  is  alive  to  something  more  than  the  mere 
concrete  in  nature  and  the  abstract  in  mind.  Of  this  aesthe- 
tic consciousness  the  form  is  intuition,  the  content  feeling. 
Thus  viewed,  beauty  is  a  purely  human  trait  which  finds  in 
naturfL  the  symbol  of  this  sense,  or  the  material  which  art 
must  perfect.     In  connection  with  this  inner  source,  beauty 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    6i 

has  a  world-significance,  inasmuch  as  it  has  no  end  and 
applies  universally  to  human  minds.  Aesthetics  has  the 
same  range  as  logic  and  is  wanting  in  no  sense  of  the  univer- 
sal and  necessary;  at  the  same  time  it  shows  its  humanistic 
superiority  over  nature  by  its  freedom  from  the  logical  labor 
which  the  understanding  employs  to  secure  sufficient  ideas. 

With  this  inner  range  and  supremacy,  art  has  attempted 
to  signalize  man's  victory  over  the  world  of  sensible  forms, 
and  the  elaboration  of  the  fine  arts  reveals  human  competi- 
tion with  nature.  However  unconscious  the  genial  work  of 
art  may  have  been,  the  manifest  motive  is  found  in  the  desire 
to  surround  man  with  objects  in  harmony  with  his  humanity. 
Indeed,  the  genius  of  humanity,  which  can  never  remain  con- 
tent with  nature,  has  exerted  itself  to  establish  a  realm 
wherein  man's  spiritual  nature  might  develop.  Art  is  a 
world-order  and  one  fitted  for  humanity  alone.  The  world 
of  knowledge  belongs  to  the  mind ;  the  world  of  conduct  is 
the  product  of  the  will;  the  world  of  beauty  is  a  unique 
product  of  man's  nature  in  its  totality.  All  true  artists  live 
positive  ones  as  art  and  religion.  These  four  disciplines 
in  the  world  of  eternal  humanity  wherein  all  striving  and 
suffering  are  intelligible.  As  the  enlightened  men  in  Plato's 
myth  of  the  cave  (Rcpub.  Bk.  vii)  are  bewildered  first  by 
going  into  the  light  and  then  by  returning  to  the  darkness, 
so  he  who  sees  humanity  in  contrast  with  nature  finds  it  diffi- 
cult to  think  and  act  according  to  routine. 

Where  the  artistic  view  of  man  seems  fraught  with  a 
certain  vagueness,  which  renders  the  cosmic  conception  of 
beauty  invalid,  the  historical  phase  of  culture  rehabilitates 
the  waning  power  of  art  and  secures  man  anew  in  his  own 
human  realm.  The  heated  present  is  bound  up  in  immediate 
interests  with  local  and  temporary  significance,  and  the  em- 
pirical man  of  the  day  must  ask.  What  shall  we  eat  and 
drink?  Wherewithal  shall  we  be  clothed  and  housed? 
The  cool  past  has  a  different  meaning.  In  the  history  of 
culture,  we  do  not  seek  the  memorials  of  these  utilities  of 
time  and  space,  but  inquire  into  the  place  of  the  permanent 
in  the  life  of  a  former  nation.  What  is  Hellenism  but 
poetry,  philosophy  and  plastic?  And  what  can  history  de- 
sire to  contemplate  but  these  phases  of  man's  world-life, 


62    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

where,  by  means  of  remote  pursuits,  he  sought  to  emanci- 
pate himself  from  the  snare  of  sense  and  the  sting  of  mortal- 
ity. All  genuine  history  concerns  those  strivings  which  arc 
still  dominant  in  mankind,  and  the  unity  of  human,  spiritual 
life  can  hardly  be  denied  when  the  culture  of  the  present, 
mutatis  mutandis,  affiliates  with  the  culture  of  the  past  to 
form  a  total,  timeless  humanity. 

Apart  from  the  worldhood  of  humanity,  the  progress  of 
culture  remains  opaque  to  all  analysis.  There  has  been 
growth,  not  mere  crystal-like  accretion;  and  this  inner  prog- 
ress of  mankind  toward  humanity  would  have  been  impossible 
without  that  unifying  principle  of  spiritual  life  which  re- 
lates man  to  an  order  of  his  own.  When  surveyed  from  the 
conventional  standpoint,  humanity  appears  to  consist  of  a 
happy  generalization  which,  in  nominalistic  fashion,  extends 
its  nature  over  individuals  and  particular  groups  of  persons; 
but  the  Platonic  idea,  which  is  here  involved,  stands  for  the 
perfect  in  character,  as  well  as  for  the  permanent  in  form; 
and  when  humanity  is  adjusted  to  the  universe,  it  assumes 
the  place  of  an  attracting  goal,  which  draws  man  away  from 
individuality  to  selfhood  and  world-life.  When,  under  the 
inspiration  of  art,  man  emancipates  himself  from  the  sensuous 
and  immediate  in  nature,  he  must  have  some  other  realm 
in  which  he  may  live  and  realize  himself.  Nature  has  no 
place  for  perfection  of  his  selfhood ;  hence  it  is  by  means  of 
a  natural  and  unconscious  tendency  that  he  acts  as  though  an 
order  of  humanity  actually  existed.  It  is  the  world  of 
humanity  without  which  the  origin  of  art  cannot  be  ex- 
plained or  its  ground  justified. 

2  The  World  of  fVorship.  Religion  is  quite  at  home 
in  that  world  of  humanity  toward  which  these  other  phases 
of  culture  incessantly  strive.  When  reason  abandons  the 
concrete  for  the  abstract,  when  conscience  aligns  a  form  of 
conduct  distinct  from  impulse  and  habit,  when  art  creates 
an  ideal  object  of  interest,  which  is  independent  of  particu- 
lar percepts  and  private  pleasure,  religion  obeys  the  same 
humanizing  instinct  and  instructs  man  to  affirm  his  spiritual 
nature  in  contrast  to  the  world  about  him.  And  of  all 
these  forms  of  human  self-assertion,  religion  is  the  most 
complets  in  its  breach  with  nature,  just  as  it  is  accompanied 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    63 

by  the  most  fruitful  ontological  results.  It  is  fitting,  there- 
fore, that  our  examination  of  the  particular  phases  of  the 
inner  world  of  humanity  should  conclude  with  the  world  of 
worship. 

Like  art,  religion  possesses  an  inner  nature  which  awakens 
spontaneously  to  the  demands  of  a  self-positing  humanity. 
No  outer  facts  evoke  it,  no  external  needs  arouse  it,  but  in 
freedom  it  puts  forth  its  native  powers.  And  like  art, 
religion  expresses  itself  in  a  manner  comparable  to  the  per- 
ceptible forms  of  nature;  that  is,  in  a  positive  manner  in  the 
institutions  of  art  and  of  worship.  The  sense  of  these 
positive  phases  of  human  contemplation  is  interpretable  only 
as  we  assume  the  existence  of  a  world-life  in  man.  Such 
religious  performances  as  arc  noted  in  the  sacred  books  of 
the  world  would  be  impossible  if  it  were  not  for  the  on- 
tological nature  of  man,  for  it  is  only  the  world  of  humanity 
within  which  can  comprehend  and  evaluate  the  world  of 
nature  without.  Only  as  the  eye  is  sunlike  in  form,  if  not 
in  nature,  can  it  perceive  the  sun.  With  his  disposition  to 
value  his  experiences,  man  begins  to  feel  somewhat  of  the 
dignity  belonging  to  his  human  nature,  just  as  he  appreciates 
the  strategic  position  which  he  occupies  in  the  total  world- 
order.  Under  the  instruction  of  religion,  man  finds  it  im- 
possible to  dwell  in  the  world  of  nature,  and  yet  it  seems 
unad'-isable  to  aspire  to  an  order  of  abstract  ideas.  Man 
thus  finds  it  necessary  to  relate  his  being  to  an  appropriate 
realm  where  his  nature  receives  just  treatment  and  his  work 
due  appreciation. 

The  history  of  positive  religion  is  not  wanting  in  evidence 
of  a  world  of  worship,  which  is  not  only  implied,  but  direct- 
ly affirmed  by  characteristic  universal  religions.  One  needs 
only  to  consult  the  Upanishads  and  the  New  Testament  to 
learn  this  important  lesson.  In  the  one,  it  is  an  intellectual- 
istic  teaching  wholly  in  keeping  with  the  mental  practice  of 
the  Aryan:  in  the  other,  it  is  more  ethical,  which  would  be 
expected  in  connection  with  Semitism.  The  Vedantist 
styles  the  world  of  worship,  "The  City  of  Brahman,"  which 
contains  the  fulfillment  of  all  desires  for  selfhood  as  w^ell  as 
all  possibilities  of  worldhood.  (Khandogya  Upan.  viil.) 
To  the  enlightened  mind,  this  religious  world-order  con- 


64    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

tains  all  that  there  is  of  truth  and  blessedness ;  the  Brahman 
City  of  Selfhood  is  an  ideal  to  which  the  devotee  is  sur- 
rendered. The  same  holy  abandon  pervaded  the  mind  of 
the  original  Christian,  who  exalted  the  moral  soul  as  the 
Brahman  had  the  contemplative  self.  By  means  of  strident 
contrast  between  the  world  and  the  spirit,  the  New  Testa- 
ment places  the  soul  in  a  human  realm  which  it  calls  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  There  it  is  that  the  soul  finds  the  realiza- 
tion of  a  value  whose  counterpart  can  never  be  afforded  by 
nature,  and  it  is  by  means  of  slaying  the  immediate  self  in 
nature  that  man  attains  to  the  final  self  in  the  Kingdom. 
Here  again  is  a  perfect  synthesis  of  human  selfhood  and 
world-hood. 

Of  all  the  forms  of  culture,  religion  is  the  most  daring  in 
Its  pursuit  of  the  world-life.  This  is  consummated  by  post- 
ulatmg  the  unity  of  finite  and  infinite.  Such  a  reconciliation 
IS  impossible  where  man  is  left  in  his  natural  individuation 
and  IS  not  endowed  with  human  selfhood ;  it  is  the  world- 
life  in  him  which  creates  a  desire  for  God  and  further  effects 
a  communion  between  them.  Religion  magnifies  man  when 
It  seeks  his  redemption,  and  under  its  auspices  the  world  of 
humanity  assumes  a  form  more  steadfast  than  that  contri- 
buted by  man's  contact  with  art.  Man  is  taught  to  seek  the 
kmgdom  of  humanity  within  him ;  his  progress  is  ever  away 
from  externality  toward  the  inwardness  of  his  inherent  hu- 
manity, which  lies  concealed  beneath  animality  and  rational- 
ity. To  perfect  such  a  program,  the  religious  system  which 
advocates  the  culture  of  Self  or  the  redemption  of  the  soul 
must  provide  a  suitable  realm  for  the  spiritual  activity  in- 
volved in  such  a  humanistic  movement.  The  Bhagavad-Gita 
(yi.  5-6)  declares,  "He  shall  by  Self,  lift  up  himself,  nor  let 
himself  sink;  for  a  man's  self  has  no  friend  but  Self,  no  foe 
but  Self.  The  Self  is  friend  to  that  self  that  has  by  self 
conquered  self;  but  self  will  be  a  very  foe  warring  against 
him  who  possesses  not  his  self."  And  having  centered  man 
in  the  Self,  it  encircles  him  in  an  order  of  being  which  is 
one  with  his  own  nature.  So  likewise  the  New  Testament, 
which  would  persuade  man  to  abandon  narrow  egoism  in 
nature  for  genuine  selfhood  in  the  world  of  humanity.  "He 
that  findeth  his  soul— o  dpu>v  rijv  ^x^v  shall  lose  it:'  he  that 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    65 

loseth  his  soul— o  aTroXcVas  rrjv  ilnjxjv  shall  find  it."  (Mt. 
X.  39).  Such  transmutations  of  life  are  impossible  apart 
from  some  second  realm  in  which  the  emancipated  self  may 
dwell. 

4 — ^THE  WORLD-LIFE  IN  HUMAN  CONSCIOUSNESS 

The  complete  plan  of  life,  which  involves  the  affirma- 
tion of  the  soul  and  constant  progress  toward  humanity,  has 
shown  somewhat  of  its  influence  in  the  ground  of  such 
theoretical  forms  of  culture  as  logic  and  ethics,  in  such 
positive  ones  as  art  and  religion.  These  four  disciplines 
afford  indirect  evidence  of  a  genuine  human  order,  in  which 
all  validity  and  value,  all  beauty  and  worship,  inhere.  Now 
it  remains  to  be  asked,  whether  this  same  world-life,  which 
is  premised  by  the  general  program  of  life  and  postulated  by 
particular  forms  of  reflection  and  action,  ever  comes  to  the 
surface  of  individual  consciousness  to  exert  any  discernible 
sway.  Does  man  feel  that  he  dwells  in  the  world  of  human- 
ity ?  Does  he  ever  make  this  world  the  object  of  his  activity  ? 
According  to  the  methods  of  traditional  ethics,  these  queries 
will  sound  empty,  inasmuch  as  the  empirical  self,  which  has 
instincts  and  intuitions,  and  is  furnished  with  maxims  about 
happiness  and  virtue,  knows  nothing  of  its  place  in  the  world 
of  humanity  or  of  the  values  and  dignities  which  accrue 
therefrom. 

The  genius  of  humanity  must  disclose  itself  and  induce 
man  to  make  the  world  his  aim.  According  to  Schopen- 
hauer's explanation  of  genius,  the  favored  individual  pos- 
sesses more  knowledge  than  is  required  for  the  service  of  the 
will-to-live,  and  this  excess  of  cognition  in  him  becomes  "a 
clear  mirror  of  the  inner  nature  of  the  world."  (fVelt  ah 
Wille  u.  Vorstellung  §  36.)  This  surplus  of  mental  power 
appears  in  an  artist  like  Michel  Angelo,  who,  according  to 
Millet,  felt  himself  to  be  "overburdened  with  life."  (Smith 
Barbizon  Days,  p.  42.)  Those  who  are  not  engrossed  in 
sense  or  ensnared  in  reason  are  conscious  of  the  totality  of 
the  world-order,  and  upon  them,  as  upon  the  heads  of  cary 
atids,  rests  the  whole  world  of  humanity.  Apart  from  k 
sense  of  man's  position  in  the  universe  and  his  place  in  the 


66    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

plan  of  humanity,  no  ethical  problem  can  be  justly  presented; 
for  it  is  absurd  to  dictate  maxims  to  man  when  you  have  not 
shown  him  what  humanity  expects  him  to  do.  Ail  desire, 
all  duties,  all  values  repose  in  the  one  effort  on  the  part  of 
spiritual  humanity  to  assert  itself  as  something  unified  in 
the  complete  order  of  being.  To  adjust  man  to  his  human- 
ity, our  theory  must  consider  the  problem  in  the  light  of  the 
ego  and  of  society. 

I  Humanity  and  the  Individual.  While  humanity  and 
personality  are  inseparable  ideas,  all  attempts  to  construe 
man's  life  in  terms  of  universality  are  confronted  by  the 
principle  of  individuation.  The  ego  asserts  itself  first;  and 
then  arises  a  whole  world  of  persons  standing  in  need  of 
both  individual  and  universal  treatment.  Antiquity  develop- 
ed the  unity  of  the  world  at  the  expense  of  the  individual ; 
modernity  perfects  the  individual  but  cannot  exert  the  same 
unifying  influence  over  the  world.  Among  our  moderns, 
Leibnitz  cannot  reduce  his  many  monads  to  a  single  system, 
while  FIchte's  individual  ego  is  produced  at  the  expense  of 
the  world.  A  reconsideration  of  the  personal  problem  may 
reveal  the  fact  that  the  distinction  between  selfhood  and 
worldhood  is  not  as  great  as  the  realm  of  phenomena  would 
seem  to  indicate,  and  one  and  the  same  humanity  may  exist 
in  both  the  individual  and  the  universe.  It  may  appear 
that  the  content  of  humanity  is  found  in  the  social  order, 
the  form  in  the  individual  one;  and  it  must  become  manifest 
that,  while  both  ego  and  alter  are  involved  in  the  world- 
order  of  human  life,  the  human  relation  does  not  consist  in 
any  such  principle  as  is  commonly  involved  in  the  problem 
of  egoism  and  altruism.  Traditional  ethics  has  considered 
only  the  phenomenal  forms  of  ego  and  society,  and  it  has 
mistaken  the  empirical  for  the  real. 

On  the  individualistic  side,  the  empirical  ego  is  not  the 
self  and  cannot  be  brought  into  the  discussion  until  some- 
thing like  selfhood  is  appreciated.  How  naive  has  man 
been  in  assuming  that  immediate  experience  could  give  him 
the  principle  of  self,  and  how  absurd  his  contrast  between 
that  tiny  individuality  and  the  outstanding  universe!  Apart 
from  a  sincere  view  of  selfhood  the  problem  of  individual 
and  universal  cannot  be  presented,  much  less  solved.     Some- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    67 

thing  world-like  in  man  is  needed  to  confront  the  universe. 
The  struggle  for  selfhood  has  not  failed  of  recognition  in 
the  history  of  humanity.  The  Veda  offers  the  idea  of  self- 
hood as  its  most  characteristic  contribution  to  human  culture. 
Beginning  with  the  tenth  mandala  of  the  Rig-Veda  which 
exalts  Brahman  as  the  One  organized  in  the  Upanishads, 
which  regard  that  One  as  the  Self,  and  completed  in  Vedan- 
ta  which  relates  the  Self  to  the  Not-Self,  Aryan  thought 
has  not  failed  to  show  how  far  removed  from  common  ex- 
perience is  the  saving  selfhood  of  humanity.  Practical 
Semitic  thought  as  expressed  in  the  New  Testament,  so 
views  the  soul  that  it  out-values  the  universe,  and  further 
organizes  human  efforts  so  that  man,  by  abandoning  his  false 
selfhood  in  nature,  may  rise  to  true  personality  in  the  world 
of  spirit.  Even  the  Sophists  felt  the  importance  of  this 
principle  when  they  made  man  the  measure  of  being  and 
not-being;  while,  in  modern  times,  Descrates'  rationalism 
puts  physical  and  psychological  investigation  upon  the  same 
plane.  Man  is  as  near  universality  as  individuality;  and  in 
the  act  of  attaining  to  selfhood  he  achieves  worldhood.  One 
need  not  adopt  an  Aryan  identification  of  man  with  nature, 
or  a  Semitic  superiority  of  God  over  the  universe  in  order, 
to  place  the  self  in  representative  relations  to  the  world; 
and  whatever  be  the  attitude  of  critical  thought  to  these 
religious  formulations  of  the  self-problem,  it  must  never  be 
forgotten  that  without  some  spiritual  program  the  idea  of 
self,  which  is  not  given  in  experience,  cannot  be  evinced. 

The  self  which  aspires  to  worldhood  is  not  the  isolated, 
unqualified  ego  who  is  set  off  by  individuation  from  his 
fellows,  as  well  as  from  nature.  He  is  a  participant  in  the 
continuity  of  human  striving,  and  this  adapts  him  to  that  one 
world  of  humanity  toward  which  mankind  is  approximating. 
Every  individual  thus  contains  the  totality  of  the  human 
order  and,  when  he  is  related  to  history,  he  is  not  more  than 
one  remove  from  the  realm  of  selfhood  which  embraces  man, 
as  nature  includes  perceptible  things.  Difficult  as  may  be 
the  undertaking  which  seeks  to  adjust  man  to  some  other 
than  a  natural  order,  and  paradoxical  as  some  of  the  posi- 
tions assumed  must  appear,  the  philosophic  claims  inherent 
in  the  idea  of  the  worldhood  of  man  arc  not  as  great  as 


68    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

those  involved  in  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
Indeed,  it  would  seem  as  though  no  just  pretension  to  im- 
mortality could  be  made  as  long  as  the  soul  is  left  apart 
from  an  appropriate  realm  of  world-life  in  mere  individua- 
tion. So  great  is  the  task  which  humanity  has  before  it  in 
the  positing  of  selfhood  that  continuity  is  demanded  to  fur- 
nish the  individual  and  his  age  with  the  means  of  approxi- 
mating to  the  goal  of  human  striving.  No  one  person,  no 
one  stage  in  human  progress  can  accomplish  the  object  of 
man's  universal  work;  hence  a  gradual  movement  in  which 
individuals  and  particular  ages  participate  is  demanded  by 
man  in  the  accomplishment  of  his  single  life-labor.  Now 
this  continuity  of  human  activity  implies  a  connection  among 
the  individuals  who  constitute  it,  and  this  connection  is 
only  another  name  for  the  world  of  humanity. 

Our  apology  for  human  individuation  must  be  accom- 
panied by  an  argument  in  favor  of  human  history,  for  both 
the  ego  and  the  individual  age  of  history  are  one  remove 
from  the  world  of  all  human  being.  From  the  usual  stand- 
point, they  appear  in  a  merely  empirical  way  and  hence  pro- 
duce the  paradox  of  the  totality  of  things  given  in  the  form  of 
individuality  and  according  to  the  historical  relation.  Never- 
theless, humanity  is  not  holden  from  the  intelligible  ego  of 
the  individual  or  the  essential  history  of  the  race.  How 
shall  the  history  of  these  individuals  be  conceived  ?  First  of 
all,  it  must  not  be  assumed  that  history  exists  as  a  matter  of 
course,  nor  that  its  content  is  made  up  of  contingent  events. 
A  metaphysical  view  becomes  imperative  when  the  reality 
of  history  is  sought.  When  our  proud  conception  of  a 
human  world-order  is  constrasted  with  human  history  as 
given  in  experience,  we  feel  forbidden  to  assert  that  this 
phenomenal  order  of  contingencies  possesses  world-signifi- 
cance. Our  conception  of  the  continuity  of  human  striving, 
however,  lends  to  history  the  category  of  relation,  and,  in 
spite  of  all  that  is  local  and  arbitrary  in  the  record  of  human 
action  and  consciousness,  something  world-like  seems  to  in- 
vest our  human  progress.  Where  history  raises  man  above 
mere  individuation,  and  relates  him  to  past  and  future  and 
the  full  order  of  progress,  the  world  itself  performs  a  similar 
service  for  history  and  gives  it  metaphysical  status.     The 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    69 

oAice  of  history  is  to  mediate  between  the  one  and  the  all, 
and  thus  to  set  man  in  symbolic  relation  to  the  universe. 
Where  an  isolated  thinker  or  actor  cannot  achieve  world- 
hood  in  himself,  he,  by  relating  himself  in  representative 
fashion  to  his  day,  comes  into  a  form  of  being  which  is  con- 
ceived sine  die.  The  philosopher  is  not  altogether  Greek  or 
German,  the  poet  is  not  wholly  Italian  or  Anglican :  he  is  in 
possession  of  a  rich  world-life  in  humanity. 

Among  the  metaphysical  forces  which  are  active  in  the 
world  of  persons,  there  appear  deeper  springs  of  action  than 
are  catalogued  in  the  traditional  work  on  moral  philosophy. 
Here  is  a  vigorous  affirmation  of  personality  which  can  spring 
from  no  other  source  than  the  desire  to  come  abreast  of  the 
human  order;  there  is  a  sense  of  suffering  which  can  be 
explained  only  as  we  regard  it  as  some  form  of  world- 
sorrow.  In  Sudermann's  *'Frau  Sorge"  this  search  for  soul- 
life  is  drawn  with  fidelity  and  penetrating  analysis,  and  the 
fairy  tale  appended  to  the  work  reveals  the  motive  implicit 
in  the  earlier  pages.  When  the  hero  inquires  of  his  mother, 
"Where  is  my  soul?",  she  asks  the  stars  for  it,  but  they  find 
him  too  low;  the  flowers  on  the  heath,  but  they  call  him  too 
ugly;  the  birds  of  the  air,  who  think  him  too  sad;  the  tall 
trees,  who  look  upon  him  as  too  humble ;  the  clever  serpents, 
who  consider  him  too  stupid.  The  hero  must  free  himself, 
and  the  author  can  find  no  device  for  his  emancipation  but 
in  the  committing  of  crime.  By  such  an  exceptional  and 
violent  method  he  breaks  away  from  an  enslaving  moral 
system  and  becomes  himself. 

The  same  consciousness  of  one's  possession  of  a  human 
soul  appears  in  forms  of  suffering  as  well.  He  who  can 
comprehend  grief  feels  it  magnified  many  diameters.  With- 
in his  soul  it  produces  a  peculiar  delirium  in  which  the  dis- 
tinction between  person  and  person  is  obliterated,  and  in  his 
anguish  he  fancies  that  all  share  his  suffering  and  are  ready 
to  run  to  his  relief.  Such  sorrow  creates  a  certain  craving 
for  sympathy  and  the  sufferer  looks  with  confidence  tor 
legions  of  angels  to  come  to  his  aid.  He  cannot  believe  that 
he  is  isolated  in  his  individuality  and  in  his  grief  he  sinks 
into  the  common  world  of  human  suffering.  It  is  the  acute 
sense  of  one's  own  humanity  which  begets  self-commisera- 


70    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

tion  and  makes  the  individual  wonder  why  he  is  so  sad, 
just  as  it  is  omnipresent  humanity  which  gives  man  his  in- 
dividuality. Hence,  whatever  may  be  the  dialectical  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  of  individual  and  universal,  the  fact 
remains  that  only  in  the  human  order  does  the  individual 
possess  a  self,  and  the  struggle  to  realize  selfhood  results  in 
the  human  attainment  of  worldhood.  Nature,  which  screens 
the  world  of  humanity  from  reason,  likewise  tends  to  pre- 
vent the  development  of  individuality.  WTien,  therefore, 
man  becomes  himself  as  self,  he  begins  to  participate  in  the 
one  world  of  humanity. 

2  The  World  of  Persons  in  Human  Consciousness,  In 
his  social  capacity,  as  one  among  many  in  a  world  of  human 
spirits,  the  individual  does  not  fail  to  receive  further  informa- 
tion from  that  human  order  which  invests  him  with  its  own 
life.  However  individualized  humanity  may  be,  the  content 
of  its  life  appears  in  a  plural  rather  than  a  singular  fashion. 
In  this  way,  the  importance  of  the  individual  receives  new  re- 
cognition when  it  is  surveyed  in  the  light  of  the  alter  or 
non-ego  who,  in  this  objective  capacity,  becomes  representa- 
tive of  the  total  world  of  humanity.  Between  these  separate 
souls  yawns  the  abyss  of  humanity,  whereby  we  are  warned 
that  no  conventional  treatment  of  egoism-altruism  can  adapt 
itself  to  the  statement  and  solution  of  the  problem.  Human 
individuals  are  adapted  to  one  another  only  as  they  are 
adjusted  to  the  universe;  and  instead  of  the  social  adjustment 
of  person  to  person,  which  resembles  the  physical  relation  of 
atom  to  atom,  human  individuals  are  made  up  in  human 
fashion  according  to  personal  and  temperamental  variations 
and  are  related  to  one  another  in  dramatic  fashion.  This 
historic  view  of  humanity  is  not  convincing,  nevertheless  it 
serves  to  set  at  nought  the  purely  economic  view  which  has 
so  long  held  sway  in  ethical  calculation. 

With  pathetic  earnestness  our  conventional  systems  have 
sought  to  relate  self  to  self,  and  ego  to  alter,  by  a  casuistical 
play  upon  prudence  and  benevolence.  Man  is  expected  to 
find  his  humanity  in  self-love,  to  express  it  in  altruistic 
affection.  How  far  removed  from  such  twofold  philan- 
thropy is  the  world  of  humanity!  How  degrading  is  the 
view  which,  in  its  exaltation  of  sympathy,  leaves  man  upon 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    71 

the  plane  of  animality  with  no  suggestion  of  his  human 
culture!  Such  sympathy  can  never  penetrate  to  the  recesses 
of  self-existence  and  adjust  itself  to  the  infinite  needs  of  the 
other  person;  and  as  an  impulse  on  the  part  of  the  natural 
man  it  ignores  the  fact  that  all  souls  are  in  the  same  human 
world,  where  they  have  the  same  destiny  and  are  confronted 
by  the  same  problems;  hence  the  bestowal  of  some  immediate 
benefit  does  not  measure  up  to  the  merits  of  the  situation. 
He  who  would  do  something  of  worth  to  mankind  must 
premise  in  the  world  of  persons  that  same  human  vocation 
which  is  active  in  him  in  this  very  altruistic  deed.  The 
alter  is  not  the  conventional  character,  the  moral  lay-figure 
of  utilitarian  ethics,  but  a  characteristic  person  who  has  his 
own  place  in  the  one  world  of  humanity.  For  this  reason, 
the  ambitious  altruist  is  constantly  thwarted  when  he  en- 
deavors to  contribute  something  to  the  unified  life  of  another 
soul.  The  only  argument  in  favor  of  benevolence  is  the 
pessimistic  one,  which,  instead  of  seeking  to  discover  the 
true  world  of  humanity  and  its  proper  values,  merely  en- 
deavors to  repair  the  actual  and  untoward  condition  of 
things  with  the  hope  of  making  empirical  life  endurable.  In 
this  guise,  benevolence  cannot  be  condemned,  although  one 
may  question  the  right  to  raise  natural  sympathy  to  the 
rank  of  moral  category. 

The  human  relation  has  its  place  in  genuine  philosophy. 
One  need  read  only  Plato  and  Aristotle  to  discover  that. 
Plato's  idealism  finds  its  source  in  the  erotic  which  makes 
the  dialectic  possible.  By  means  of  Eros,  the  soul  of  man 
is  stirred  to  longing  for  the  ideal  which  is  suggested  by  the 
sensible  forms  of  things,  and  it  is  under  the  inspiration  of 
this  same  principle  that  human  society  is  made  possible.  In 
Plato,  therefore,  the  erotic  leads  man  to  knowledge  of  the 
Idea  and  unites  him  with  his  fellows  in  an  ideal  Republic, 
Aristotle  treats  the  human  relation  in  the  same  fundamental 
fashion  when  he  introduces  friendship  into  the  Nicomachean 
ethics,  because  he  believes  that  the  topic  is  allied  with 
virtue  just  as  the  "good  man"  and  the  **friend"  are  terms 
not  at  all  dissimilar  (Bk.  viii.  Ch.  i),  and  friendship  and 
justice  are  considered  to  have  the  same  subject-matter  (lb. 
Ch.    IX ).     The   Aristotlelian    conception    of    friendship    is 


72    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

such  that  it  cannot  be  based  upon  pleasure  or  utility;  but 
depends  upon  a  mental  participation  in  the  Good  (Ch.  5). 
Both  of  these  elder  masters  emphasize  the  importance  of  the 
bond  between  soul  and  soul  and  decline  to  discuss  it  upon 
any  other  than  a  noumenal  basis. 

Poetry    as   well    as    philosophy    gives   evidence    of    this 
metaphysical  basis  upon  which  human  souls  exist  and  in- 
teract, and  the  subject  of  human  intercourse  becomes  drama- 
tic as  well  as  dialectical.     Whatever  the  final  solution  of 
the  drama  as  a  problem  may  be,  and  whether  with  Hegel 
we  style  it  a  typical  adjustment  of  finite  spirit  to  the  Absolute 
or,  with  Schopenhauer,  look  upon  it  as  the  relation  of  indi- 
vidual will  to  the  universal  Will  to  Live  ( fi^elt  als  fVille  u, 
Vorstellung  §  51),  it  cannot  be  overlooked  that  the  play  re- 
presents the  individual's  relation  to  the  world  of  humanity, 
wherein  the  lyrical  subject  seeks  to  adapt  himself  to  the  epic 
situation.     The  drama  cannot  perfect  itself  upon  any  narrow 
basis  of   prudence-benevolence,    but   must   sink   deeper   and 
evoke  the  characteristic  impulses  of  the  human  soul.       No 
theory  of  self-love  will  account  for  the  acts  of  the  lyrical 
subject  who,  in  the  spirit  of  freedom  or  overcome  by  fate, 
seeks  to  realize  personal  ambition,  surmount  difficulties,  and 
assert  himself  as  a  character.     On   the  other  hand,  mere 
benevolence  or  the  want  of  it  can  never  account  for  malice 
and  envy,  jealousy  and  anger  and  all  the  varied  passions  of 
which  the  dramatist  avails  himself.     Which,  then,  is  human- 
ity; the  practical,  economic  subject  who  knows  but  two  senti- 
ments: egoism  and  altruism,  or  the  characteristic  person  who 
eludes  such  prosaic  classification  and  exhibits  a  rich  manifold 
of  human  impulses  in  the  complications  of  human  life?     If 
there  be  something  histrionic  in  the  humanity  of  man,  must 
not  our  ethical  systems  enrich  their  classification  of  human 
impulses  and  admit  of  something  more  than  the  instincts  of 
private  and  public  benevolence?     Humanity  is  to  nature  as 
the  sea  is  to  the  land— detached,   free,   and   profound;   no 
philosophy  of  life  can  measure  man  unless  it  surveys  him 
sui  generis. 

The  attitude  of  man  toward  his  humanity  has  made  it 
possible  ror  poetry  to  introduce  intents  unknown  to  the  pure- 
ly physical  view  of  mankind.     In  his  human  capacity,  man 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    73 

shows  himself  to  be  allied  with  a  separate  and  sea-like  order 
of  things,  whereby  new  values  enter  into  the  problem  of  life. 
So  aesthetical  is  his  nature  that  he  becomes  the  subject  of 
ideal  impulses  and  ideal  feelings;  with  such  the  drama  ever 
deals  in  its  perpetual  play  of  the  unreal.  Thus  viewed,  the 
human  subject  shows  his  tendency  to  act  with  extra-spon- 
taneity, to  feel  with  hyper-sensitivity;  such  is  his  attitude 
toward  himself  in  the  world  of  humanity  and  the  fact  of 
ideal  suffering  and  ideal  action  is  a  direct  evidence  that  such 
an  independent  order  exists.  Were  naturism  the  total  of 
man's  life  there  would  be  no  place  for  these  unreal  forms  of 
activity  and  passivity.  **The  beast,"  says  Schiller,  "can  only 
desire  to  relieve  himself  from  pain;  only  man  can  resolve  to 
suffer"  (  Ueber  Anmut  und  Wiirde;  Ueber  fViirde),  and  in  a 
more  fundamental  fashion  Schopenhauer  has  pointed  out  how 
suffering  is  essential  to  man  because  of  the  advancement  of  his 
knowledge;  thus  he  says,  "In  proportion  as  knowledge  at- 
tains to  distinctness,  as  consciousness  ascends,  pain  also  in- 
creases, and  accordingly  reaches  its  highest  grade  in  man ;  who 
the  more  clearly  he  knows  and  the  more  intelligent  he  is, 
the  more  he  suffers;  the  man  of  genius  suffers  most  of  all." 
(fVelt  als  JVille  u,  Vorstellung,  §  56.) 

The  sublime  treatment  of  the  self  in  the  world  of  human- 
ity is  brought  about  by  the  subordination  of  nature  to  cul- 
ture, of  body  to  mind,  whereby  passion  changes  into  senti- 
ment and  man  contemplates  his  humanity  instead  of 
calculating  his  physical  pleasures  and  pains.  With  a  highly 
developed  nervous  system  man  pursues  plea«?ure,  not  merely 
for  the  sake  of  bodily  satisfaction,  but  in  order  to  have  sheer 
mental  enjoyment.  We  need  not  accept  the  philosophy  of 
the  Veda  to  see  that,  as  a  man's  self  has  no  friend  but  Self, 
no  foe  but  Self,  so  only  in  his  humanity  is  man  capable  of 
either  pleasure  or  pain.  The  Epicurean  creates  ideal  pleas- 
ures for  the  sake  of  ideal  enjoyment,  while  the  ascetic  in- 
flicts pain  upon  himself  for  the  sake  of  an  unnecessary  form 
of  suffering.  Extra  indulgence  which  yearns  for  ideal  excite- 
ment, and  extra  suffering  which  longs  for  unreal  sources 
of  pain,  reveal  man  in  his  arbitrary  humanity  as  the 
subject  of  sentimental  joy  and  sorrow.  While,  by  such 
practices,  man  mistakes  his  human  vocation,  and  offers  a 


74    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

new  example  of  the  principle  corruptio  optimi  pessima,  he 
does  not  fail  to  exhibit  a  victorious  humanity,  which  wounds 
itself  by  such  morbid  practices  in  the  realm  of  pleasure-pain ; 
so  far  as  the  individual  is  concerned,  man  seems  bent  upon 
attaining  to  consciousness  of  himself  in  the  world  of  human- 
ity, which  accounts  for  the  ideality  of  the  suffering. 

With  the  aesthetic  treatment  of  the  self  goes  the  rela- 
tion of  soul  to  soul  in  the  human  and  histrionic  order.  To 
stolid  philosophy,  which  clings  to  a  naturistic  egoism  and 
altruism,  the  peculiar  rapport  of  persons  seems  suggestive 
of  the  morbid.  Just  as  the  religious  ideal  of  non-resent- 
ment, as  proclaimed  by  Taoism  and  the  Krishna-cult  of  the 
Bhagavad-Gita,  by  Buddhism,  the  Book  of  Proverbs  and 
Christianity,  discloses  a  new  order  of  life  beyond  the  gaze 
of  the  unenlightened,  so  dramatic  poetry  reveals  courses  of 
action  unheard  of  in  the  social  order  of  human  life.  Here 
humanity  rules  with  poetic  justice.  Common  sense  cannot 
account  for  the  character  of  lago,  where  humanity  appears 
in  total  perversion;  nor  can  it  explain  the  sorrows  of  Anti- 
gone in  the  midst  of  her  inner  conflicts.  Calderon's  "Life 
4  Dream"  can  be  read  only  as  the  exquisite  nature  of  man  is 
the  object  of  our  attention.  Among  moderns,  Ibsen  has  in- 
troduced purely  human  motives  to  show,  if  possible,  how  and 
why  people  act  as  they  do.  In  "The  Master  Builder"  and 
*Hedda  Gabler,"  the  aim  of  the  heroines  is  to  sway  a 
human  soul  and  mould  its  destiny;  here  in  an  unconscious 
manner  which  tends  toward  the  good,  there  in  a  conscious 
fashion  as  it  is  directed  toward  the  bad.  The  common 
destruction  of  the  heroes  involved  is  brought  about  in  ways 
which  are  directly  opposed.  Wagner's  romantic  opera 
habitually  employs  this  tendency  toward  soul-swaying  in 
the  particular  form  of  man's  salvation  by  a  member  of  the 
same  human  order,  in  which  man  is  redetpied  by  sacrifice. 
Hence  the  Ring  des  Nibelungen  leads  humanity  from  cave 
to  mountain  and  the  sky,  in  the  form  of  dwarfs,  giants  and 
gods  where  at  the  conclusion  Brunnhilde  all  but  redeems 
Siegfried.  In  view  of  such  examples,  ethics  finds  it  necesc 
sary  to  employ  some  motive  more  ruling  than  sympathy  if 
humanity  is  to  be  explained. 

Such  motives  and  traits  characterize  those  who  find  their 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    75 

place  in  the  inner  world  of  persons  where  they  live  ac- 
cording to  individuality  rather  than  conventionality.  Our 
modern  ethical  philosophy  has  not  contemplated  man  as  such 
while  it  has  viewed  his  human  world  in  mere  outline;  but 
just  as  our  artists  are  developing  a  perspective  that  is  not 
only  linear,  but  aerial  and  chromatic,  our  moralists  would 
better  revise  their  theories  to  account  for  the  characteristic 
in  human  nature.  We  must  appreciate  dignity  in  Raphael's 
art  but  not  overlook  the  vitality  of  Velasquez.  Man  may 
not  live  to  himself,  but  he  does  live  to  his  humaniy  and  being 
suffused  with  human  atmosphere,  he  must  be  surveyed  in  an 
impressionistic  manner.  Our  views  of  humanity  have  gone 
from  rationality  to  utility  without  concerning  themselves 
about  genuine  human  interests.  Man  desires  neither  the 
abstract  nor  the  concrete;  his  humanity  inclines  him  toward 
the  intuitive.  For  this  reason,  we  must  not  look  for  the 
realization  of  life  in  conduct  apart  from  its  idealization  in 
theory,  for  every  one  feels  that  he  is  not  only  doing  a  work 
but  playing  a  part,  so  that  all  humanity  has  a  touch  of  the 
histrionic  in  it.  Men  were  meant  to  be  men,  not  monks 
or  merchants,  and  the  theory  that  enjoins  mere  duties  and 
utilities  overlooks  the  warm  humanity  of  man. 

Our  own  ethical  theory  must  seek  to  account  for  man  as 
well  as  for  the  partial  and  prejudiced  views  of  his  nature; 
as  a  result  there  will  appear  three  characterise  ic  views  of 
life  in  the  world.  By  means  of  his  spiritual  self-assertion, 
the  continuity  of  his  striving,  and  the  approximation  to  his 
human  order,  man  has  developed  certain  types  of  conduct. 
First  in  order  comes  a  period  of  naturistic  being,  where 
reason  is  submerged  in  sense  and  spirituality  prevented  by 
animality.  Then  follows  an  order  of  being  in  which  reason 
and  spirit  become  independent  and  turn  against  the  world 
whose  external  nature  seems  so  alien  to  the  internal  needs  of 
the  soul.  Where  the  first  view  of  life  upholds  immediacy 
and  sense,  the  second  emphasizes  remoteness  and  rationality. 
Finally,  man  settles  down  to  the  inner  realization  of  his 
humanity,  and  gives  up  the  idea  that  he  can  be  wholly 
animal  or  wholly  spiritual.  Then,  as  if  for  the  first  time, 
he  sees  the  meaning  of  his  inner  selfhood  and  outer  world- 
hood,   and  thereby  learns  what  to  expect  of  both  himself 


76    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

and  nature.  Traces  of  these  earlier  forms  of  life  still  cling 
to  him,  however,  and  he  finds  it  imperative  to  participate 
in  the  life  of  sense  as  well  as  the  life  of  reason.  These 
phases  of  human  life  that  accrue  from  the  progress  of  human- 
ity toward  self-realization  may  be  styled,  (i)  Naturistic,  (2) 
Characteristic,  (3)  Humanistic.  From  the  Sankhya  philo- 
sophy to  Schiller,  these  types  have  been  recognized,  and  it 
requires  only  careful  adjustment  of  them  to  the  inner  essence 
and  outer  realization  of  life  to  place  the  problem  of  humanity 
in  a  proper  light. 


PART  TWO 


THE  NATURISTIC  VIEW  OF  LIFE 


THE  LIFE  OF  HUMANITY  IN  SENSE 


I — THE    FIRST   STAGE   OF    MANKIND 


The  general  consideration  of  human  life,  which  has  been 
laid  down  as  the  groundwork  of  this  ethical  theory,  provides 
for  an  original  type  of  living  in  the  form  of  naturism.  What 
was  then  a  course  of  conduct  on  the  part  of  the  primitive 
man  is  now  a  form  of  consciousness  in  the  mind  of  the  man 
of  culture.  No  sensible  person  could  ever  imagine  that  the 
life  of  man  could  be  conducted  in  disregard  of  naturistic 
interest,  and  with  the  Gentiles  we  must  inquire  concerning 
our  food  and  drink,  our  clothing  and  shelter.  Yet  he  who 
IS  alive  to  the  essential  naturism  of  our  human  existence  is 
called  upon  further  to  recognize  how  relative  is  this  con- 
sideration; nature  is  a  part  of  man's  life,  but  only  a  part. 
That  which  produced  man  constantly  fosters  the  genius  of 
humanity  within  him,  for  it  is  by  means  of  this  enveloping 
medium  that  his  science  arranges  phenomena  according  to  a 
human,  or  mental,  plan;  while  art  selects  and  adjusts  them 
in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  taste.  From  the  example 
of  this  scientifico-aesthetic  deed,  it  is  plain  that  man,  who 
clings  to  his  environment,  is  determined  to  transform  it  in 
accordance  with  human  principles  of  judgment,  and  while 
man  is  ever  naturistic,  he  is  none  the  less  humanistic.  The 
full  history  of  mankind  makes  provision  for  this  early  pre- 
paratory stage  of  spiritual  life.  The  Tamas-Guna  or 
gloomy  quality  of  matter  in  the  Sankhya  and  the  hylical 
order  of  Gnosticism,  Plato's  group  of  artisans  and  Vice's 
stage  of  nature-peoples  are  classic  cxanriples  of  this  begin- 
ning. 

The  adjustment  of  humanity  to  nature,  which  should 
be  of  obvious  import,  requires  considerable  discussion,  inas- 
much as  our  minor  moral  theories  have  never  surveyed  hu- 

19 


8o    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

man  life  in  its  totality.  Both  hedonism  and  intuitionism  arc 
wanting  in  genuine  philosophic  spirit,  since  one  has  failed 
to  look  forward  to  consider  the  goal  of  human  existence, 
while  the  other  has  similarly  refused  to  survey  its  ground  in 
the  world  of  nature.  As  a  problem,  life  must  be  surveyed 
both  a  f route  and  a  tergo.  Nature  may  well  be  left  to  itself 
for  the  best  and  the  worst  that  can  be  said  about  it  is  that 
it  is  only  primitive  in  form  and  influential  in  character.  To 
relate  nature  to  life,  thought  must  regard  it  as  fundamental 
but  not  final,  for  a  period  in  human  existence  which  knows 
neither  culture  within  nor  civilization  without,  while  it  is 
indispensable  in  human  life,  is  not  the  sum  total  of  human 
striving.  There  is  thus  a  genuine  view  of  naturistic  ethics 
which  looks  upon  pleasure  as  something  preparatory,  and  a 
spurious  one  which  so  dignifies  simple  feeling  that  it  uses  all 
its  powers  to  negate  it  for  the  sake  of  abstract  virtue.  Na- 
ture is  neither  the  friend  nor  the  foe  of  humanity,  which  is 
related  to  it  in  a  fashion  temporary  and  incidental.  To  ap- 
preciate nature  in  human  life,  we  must  survey  the  origin 
and  development  of  morality.  Apart  from  the  totality  of 
human  existence,  this  double  question  admits  of  no  satis- 
factory discussion.  Hedonism  loses  sight  of  ethical  per- 
manence and  fails  to  deduce  any  moral  category;  rigorism 
is  blind  to  moral  progress  and  cannot  invest  life  with  any 
content.  The  view  of  life  as  humanistic  has  in  mind  such 
a  vast  plan  for  humanity  that  the  rise,  development,  and  cul- 
mination of  the  ethical  is  capable  of  easy  adjustment  to  the 
problem  of  progress. 

The  idea  of  progress  is  by  no  means  an  ordinary  one  and 
seems  to  stand  in  need  of  a  justification  of  its  own.  Where 
Aristotle  worked  with  the  assumption  that  culture  was 
complete  so  that  no  advancement  was  necessary,  the  Stoics 
suggested  the  idea  of  progress  with  their  term  vtfiiKwinj 
Leibnitz  uses  the  word  Forttrieb,  the  eighteenth  century  pro- 
duces Fortschriit  and  Fortgang,  terms  which  are  associated 
with  Tetens  and  Herder  respectively  (Euckcn,  Gesch.  d. 
philos,  Termmoi  S.  136,  169).  If,  in  opposition  to  the 
rationalistic  view,  we  can  accustom  ourselves  to  the  idea  that 
morality  arose  as  something  which  had  not  existed  before ;  and 
if  we  can  look  upon  that  origin  as  a  genuine  humanism,  and 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    81 

not  a  masked  hedonism,  we  shall  have  accomplished  enough 
to  place  the  ethical  problem  in  a  proper  light.  Morality  has 
had  a  beginning;  it  arose  in  accordance  with  a  demand  on 
the  part  of  humanity  which  was  already  striving  with  na- 
ture. Whether  morality  was  introduced  by  religion  or  not, 
it  has  not  always  been  in  the  world,  but  arose  when  man 
began  to  reflect  upon  the  different  values  which  the  inner  and 
the  outer  represented  to  him. 


2 — THE  ORIGIN   OF  MORAL  LIFE 

Two  hindrances  obstruct  the  pathway  back  to  the 
source  of  man's  moral  being.  One  is  a  scientific  difficulty 
due  to  want  of  satisfactory  data  concerning  the  subject 
itself ;  the  other  is  a  sentimental  one  which  involves  the  in- 
vestigator who  hesitates  to  disclose  the  root  of  moral  activi- 
ty. This  antipathy  to  psycho-genesis  is  a  modern  mood 
which  stands  in  need  of  patient  treatment.  Thus  the 
origins  of  art  and  religion,  of  science  and  morality,  are  not 
the  most  welcome  ideas  in  idealistic  philosophy,  for  deep 
and  miry  seems  the  pit  whence  they  are  dug.  We  will 
examine  the  ground  in  human  thought,  but  not  the  origin 
in  human  consciousness,  for  we  have  a  prejudice  against 
social  evolution  which  is  comparable  to  the  antipathy  to  poli- 
tical history  for  which  the  Enlightenment  was  unfortunately 
so  famous.  Yet  the  origin  was  there  and  it  demands  re- 
cognition. 

Apart  from  any  particular  theory  of  morality  and  its 
origin,  we  may  assume  that  the  ethical  life  has  not  been 
without  a  career,  which  has  been  marked  by  progress  from 
lower  to  higher,  or  from  nature  to  spirit.  It  is  not  so  much 
the  history  of  actual  morality,  which  cannot  be  viewed  in  the 
same  light  as  the  obvious  history  of  law,  religion,  and  art, 
but  the  successive  estimates  that  man  has  placed  upon  his 
life,  that  affords  us  material  for  discussion.  When  the 
actual  world  of  humanity  changes  from  sheer  naturism  to 
an  artificial  civilization,  when  art,  law,  and  worship  ascend 
from  the  primitive  to  the  perfect,  it  is  to  be  expected  that 
man's  sentiments  will  vary  accordingly.  Ethical  thought 
must  be  seized  in  a  dynamic  fashion,  inasmuch  as  the  life  of 


82    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

man  obeys  some  law  of  change;  and  to  ignore  the  progres- 
sive moment  in  human  life  is  to  ignore  life  itself.  To  return 
to  nature  is  a  genial  suggestion,  which  docs  not  fail  to  in- 
dicate that  man  has  long  since  left  his  immediate  life  behind 
him;  but  more  in  the  spirit  of  progressive  nature  is  it  to 
proclaim,  "Let  us  advance  to  our  humanity." 

Man  is  evidently  bent  upon  asserting  his  humanity,  for 
he  aspires  to  be  a  person,  not  a  thing,  and  nature  does  not 
furnish  him  with  instincts  of  selfhood,  nor  does  it  provide 
him  with  a  fit  situation  for  the  display  of  his  human  activi- 
ties. Even  the  man  of  nature  will  be  a  person,  which  is  at 
least  one  remove  from  animality.  Locomotion  distinguishes 
animal  from  plant;  self-assertion  separates  man  from  the 
brute.  Nevertheless,  it  is  only  a  false  and  negative  asser- 
tion of  individuality  which  obtains  upon  the  plane  of  nature, 
and  its  value  for  the  emancipation  of  an  earth-bound  human- 
ity is  merely  suggestive,  inasmuch  as  it  indicates  a  purpose 
and  a  power  unconceived  and  misapplied. 

It  is  the  destiny  of  man  to  strive,  and  no  space-filling, 
time-occupying,  force-exerting  ideal  of  the  physical  may 
apply  to  him.  Upon  the  naturistic  level,  this  conative  at- 
titude of  the  individual  appears  in  the  forms  of  "will  to 
live,"  "struggle  for  existence,"  "being  one's  self."  With 
plant  and  animal,  man  shares  these  primal  impulses,  but 
humanity  means  more  than  vitality.  Man  struggles  for 
something  more  than  the  self-preservation  of  his  existence; 
his  will  soars  above  the  stage  of  mere  living,  and  the  develop- 
ment of  a  worlr*  of  culture  demonstrates  the  fact  that  life 
and  existence  upon  earth  are  not  sufficient  for  the  human 
spirit.  The  struggle  is  for  spiritual  life,  not  mere  being; 
the  will-to-live  does  not  end  with  the  fact  of  life  but  ascends 
to  the  higher  form  of  the  will-to-well-being,  to  beauty,  to 
knowledge.  Earth-born  is  not  earth-bound,  and  a  creature 
of  nature  need  not  hesitate  to  approach  the  domain  of  spirit. 
When  this  vitalistic  conception  of  man  is  entertained,  it  is 
not  so  difficult  to  account  for  the  origin  and  growth  of 
morality.  If  the  good  were  a  concept  established  by  ab- 
stract thinking,  it  would  describe  a  circle  excluding  the  ac- 
tivities of  the  primitive  man ;  then  it  would  be  well  nigh 
impossible   to   interpret   his   raw   self-assertion    as   a   moral 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    83 

impulse.  Where  we  do  not  assume  the  static  point  of  view, 
but  claim  that  morality  stands  for  a  progressive  condition, 
naturism  may  stand  for  primitive  morality,  indeed  as  the 
very  beginning  of  ethical  doing. 

To  obtain  the  benefits  of  naturism,  philosophy  must 
esteem  the  primitive  state  sound  and  deficient  only  in  range. 
Any  other  view  such  as  that  of  Kant,  who  looks  upon  natural 
affection  as  though  it  were  "pathological,"  will  find  it  diffi- 
cult to  explain  how  mankind  has  made  its  progress.  It  is 
quite  true  that  progress  is  a  novelty,  even  in  modern  philo- 
sophy and  where  it  was  unknown  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries,  it  is  not  adequately  valued  in  the  nine- 
teenth and  twentieth.  Nevertheless,  progress  is  a  category 
which  possesses  the  understanding  of  man,  and  the  idea  of 
human  moral  development  is  one  that  cannot  be  escaped. 

We  shrink  from  the  idea  of  development  in  morality, 
because  it  suggests,  not  the  progressive,  but  the  regressive. 
Goodness  must  stand  alone  in  ethical  isolation,  exhibiting 
no  likeness  to  things  in  the  earth;  such  is  the  usual  scruple 
of  the  moralist  who  follows  traditional  intuitionism.  Yet  in 
the  parallel  cases  of  beauty  and  truth,  we  are  not  so  sus- 
picious of  nature.  Granted  that  aesthetical  theory  is  finally 
able  to  postulate  an  ideal  of  beauty  which,  in  all  its  univer- 
sality and  necessity  shall  be  free  from  the  particular  in 
nature  and  from  the  partial  or  interested  in  man;  yet  that 
intuition  of  beauty  were  impossible  if  man  could  not  feel 
pleasure.  Knowledge  even  more  than  art  may  insist  upon 
pure  principles  of  self-evident  and  all-sufficient  truth,  yet 
such  knowledge  traces  back  to  something  given  in  sensation. 
It  is  thus  expected  that  feeling  should  originate  beauty  and 
taste,  that  sensation  should  end  in  thought  and  knowledge; 
why  then  should  we  hesitate  to  lay  bare  the  root  of  good- 
ness? "Duty,"  exclaims  Kant,  "what  origin  is  there  worthy 
of  thee,  and  where  is  to  be  found  the  root  of  thy  noble 
descent?"  Yet  this  same  Kant  did  not  hesitate  to  relate 
truth  to  the  forms  of  sense,  and  beauty  to  the  principles 
of  feeling. 


84    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

3 — THE   POSSIBILITY  OF   MORAL   PROGRESS 

In  the  current  condition  of  ethical  theory,  it  seems  im- 
possible to  survey  the  progressive  plan  of  humanity  in  a 
satisfactory  manner.  By  its  very  nature,  hedonism  is  pledged 
to  the  relative  in  morals,  inasmuch  as  it  reverses  the  virtue, 
not  for  Its  own  sake,  but  by  reason  of  its  eudaemonic  tend- 
ency. Hence,  when  the  conditions  of  existence  change,  the 
estimate  of  virtue  varies  accordingly.  Intuitlonism  is  similar- 
ly surrendered  to  a  metaphysical  view,  but  one  the  very 
reverse  of  hedonic  relativism;  the  theory  which  regards  vir- 
tue as  final  looks  upon  its  form  as  fixed  in  immutability. 
That  which  was  an  academic  quarrel  within  the  systems  of 
Hobbes  and  Cudworth-Clarke,  is  still  a  form  of  dispute 
between  evolutionists  and  rationalists.  With  neither  view 
can  one  sympathize  altogether,  since  each  has  something 
eccentric  about  it.  When  the  central  motive  of  humanity 
is  made  the  point  of  departure,  moral  progress  as  such  as- 
sumes its  proper  place  and  presents  no  such  crabbed  question 
as  now  disturbs  our  attempts  to  measure  man's  work  in  the 
world.  Neither  change  nor  changelessness  is  convincing  in 
moral  matters,  which  view  the  value  of  human  experiences, 
and  when  the  plan  of  humanity  is  made  the  standard  of 
moral  judgment,  and  man's  Immediate  motives  are  judged 
in  the  light  of  what  humanity  is  attempting  to  do,  ethical 
progress  in  both  deed  and  consciousness  will  be  an  aid 
rather  than  hindrance  to  the  theory  of  life.  By  means  of 
progress  man  realizes  himself  as  human,  and  were  it  not  for 
this  plan,  which  is  peculiar  :o  humanity,  all  visible  reality 
would  have  remained  upon  the  plane  of  mere  nature. 

Having  found  humanity  to  be  continuous  in  its  striving 
toward  realization,  the  particular  view  of  the  ethical  life  can 
do  no  better  than  adopt  the  progressive  plan  in  describing 
virtues  and  aligning  values.  However  deferential  toward 
virtue  one  may  be,  he  cannot  close  his  eyes  to  the  struggle 
which  man  has  undergone  to  perfect  it ;  and  bright  as  it  may 
appear  to-day,  in  an  age  of  conscious  culture  and  alert 
civilization,  it  arose  as  no  day-spring  unanticipated  in  the 
preliminary  efforts  of  primitive  man.  Those  who  system- 
atize a  nation's  morals  do  not  originate  new  Ideals  but  simply 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    85 

restate  traditions  In  a  philosophical  form  which  gives  them 
apparent  self-sufficiency.  Such  was  the  work  of  Confucius 
among  the  Chinese,  Vyasa  among  the  Hindoos,  Zoroaster 
among  Iranians  in  the  east,  Hebrew  prophets  and  Grecian 
philosophers  who  so  influenced  subsequent  thought  in  the 
west.  Among  the  ancient  Chinese,  for  example,  Laotze  ar- 
ranges the  various  orders  of  life  in  suggestive  succession ; 
hence  the  Tao-Teh-King  (Ch.  18-19),  reviewing  the  ideals 
of  a  primitive  and  paradisical  age,  points  to  the  "decay  of 
manners,"  and  adds  a  counsel  to  "return  to  the  unadulter- 
ated influence."  In  keeping  with  this,  the  practical  is  set 
at  variance  with  the  perfect,  when  (Part  11.  Chapter  38) 
the  Teh  is  constrasted  with  the  Tao.  "Thus  it  was  when 
the  Tao  w  as  lost,  its  attributes  appeared ;  when  its  attributes 
were  lost,  benevolence  appeared;  when  benevolence  was  lost, 
righteousness  appeared;  and  when  righteousness  was  lost, 
the  proprieties  appeared."  In  the  midst  of  this  melancholy 
descent,  we  may  observe  three  stages  which  above  all  others 
are  like  those  of  our  own  plan  of  history,  namely:  righteous- 
ness, benevolence,  and  the  ideal,  or  Tao. 

If  we  reverse  this  plan  and  make  other  changes  to  render 
the  whole  scheme  consonant  with  our  western  methods,  we 
may  receive  a  suggestion  in  keeping  with  our  own  surmise 
concerning  the  fortunes  of  the  life-ideal.  The  desire  for 
life  and  happiness  becomes  a  desire  for  virtue ;  the  pursuit  of 
virtue  is  based  upon  the  value  of  the  ethical  life.  Naturism 
is  changed  into  rationalism,  while  rationalism  mellows  into 
humanism,  which  preserves  the  content  of  the  first  period 
and  the  form  of  the  second.  This  is  the  inner  truth  con- 
tained in  the  Gunas  of  Kaplla,  the  classes  of  Plato,  the  three 
sorts  of  Gnostic  men,  the  sensuous,  heroic  and  human  ages  of 
mankind  outlined  by  Vico.  Nature  is  the  beginning,  human- 
ity the  end  of  mankind,  while  reason  is  the  means  employed 
in  effecting  the  transmutation. 

The  immediacy  which  marked  the  primitive  condition  of 
the  human  race  precludes  the  thought  that  mankind  began 
its  career  under  the  banner  of  an  idealistic  system  of  moral- 
ity. For  Socrates  and  Kant,  each  with  memorials  of  a  great 
age  of  civilization  behind  him,  it  is  not  difficult  to  lay  down 
autonomous  rules  of  rational,  ethical  conduct;  but  the  man 


86    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

who  has  just  begun  to  assume  the  human  burden  must  make 
a  simpler  initiative.  Ideal  activity  and  spiritual  culture  arc 
not  primitive,  and  the  man  who  has  not  yet  attained  to 
them  must  live  such  a  life  as  his  environment  makes  possible. 
The  guide  of  life  is  stern  necessity  which  has  not  yet  as- 
sumed the  force  of  a  conscience  or  moral  imperative,  fit  to 
govern  the  whole  world.  It  is  only  an  advanced  stage  of 
human  culture  which  conceives  of  the  soul  as  a  unity  and  the 
world  in  its  totality,  and  why  should  we  look  to  naturism 
for  the  principles  of  intuitional  ethics  ?  We  cannot  say  with 
Hobbes  that,  in  the  state  of  nature,  nothing  is  either  com- 
manded or  forbidden,  although  we  may  assume  that  the 
primitive  commandment  involved  no  autonomous  sanction 
for  conduct. 

Primitive  conduct  was  instinctive,  not  intuitive;  that  is, 
It  was  in  accordance  with  the  needs  of  sense,  not  in  harmony 
with  the  ideals  of  reason.  Let  it  be  granted  that  there  is  a 
difficulty  encountered  when  our  thought  seeks  to  pass  from 
utility  to  virtue,  but  this  same  hesitation  is  felt  when  a  sen- 
sation is  to  become  an  idea.  Indeed,  all  idealism,  which  seeks 
to  transfigure  the  facts  of  experience  that  they  may  detach 
themselves  from  the  world  of  sense,  is  obliged  to  surmount 
this  hindrance ;  and  the  question  concerning  the  growth  of  the 
ethical  ideal  is  only  an  acute  form  of  the  common  human 
predicament.  In  the  particular  case  of  the  ethical,  some 
relief  may  be  found  in  the  thought  that  man,  the  subject  for 
whose  sake  moral  laws  were  originally  instituted,  himself 
is  and  was  then  conceived  of  as  possessing  an  intrinsic  value, 
and  although  only  his  animal  nature  was  served  by  the  crude 
ethical  virtue,  he  was  thereby  enabled  to  realize  himself  as 
human  and  spiritual.  Even  in  the  rare  atmosphere  of 
Christianity,  the  duties  of  feeding  and  clothing  are  not  dis- 
regarded, but  are  rather  put  upon  the  highest  plane  of  saint- 
hood. In  this  way  a  purely  natural  good,  which  with  a 
lower  animal  would  serve  only  a  physical  purpose,  is  raised 
to  ethical  significance;  and  with  virtues  like  justice  and  bene- 
volence, the  realization  of  the  moral  values  involved  can  be 
expressed  only  in  terms  of  immediate  physical  benefit.  Man 
is  necessarily  human.  The  skeptical  Xenophanes  urged  that 
had  the  horse,  lion  and  ox  hands,  they  would  fashion  images 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    87 

of  their  deities  in  their  own  likenesses ;  while  the  witty  Aesop 
makes  the  lion  suggest  that  had  he  been  the  sculptor,  he 
would  have  made  the  statue  represent  the  lion  conquering 
Hercules.  Nevertheless,  the  eternally  human  is  inevitable 
and  as  long  as  man  is  adjusted  to  nature  and  spirit  as  the 
poles  of  his  being,  his  humanism  will  never  mislead  or  wound 
him. 

4 — ^THB  ENTRANCE  OF  IDEALISM 

Meanwhile,  in  the  midst  of  an  experience  which  has  not 
yet  become  empirical,  the  primitive  man  shows  himself  cap- 
able of  idealistic  aims.  His  is  an  age  when  myth  and  poem 
find  that  expression  which  can  come  only  from  contact  with 
nature;  to  return  to  it  later  times  must  renounce  their  ac- 
quired knowledge  and  resume  a  forgotten  naturism  if  they 
are  to  be  artistic.  The  crass  satisfactions  after  which  the 
Gentiles  sought,  show  how  an  age  far  advanced  beyond  its 
nature-condition  cannot  accustom  itself  to  a  higher  life, 
while  the  ideal  desires  of  primitive  peoples  show  how  serene- 
ly children  of  earth  may  anticipate  the  dawn  of  a  spiritual 
age.  Humanism  at  its  height  cannot  forego  the  desire  to 
rehabilitate  nature,  and  the  farther  man  is  removed  from  his 
animality,  the  more  perfect  is  his  approach  to  the  spirit  of 
the  world.  Such  a  consciousness  as  this  led  Schiller,  in  his 
essay  on  "Naive  and  Sentimental  Poetry,"  to  assert,  "The 
antique  poet  was  nature;  the  modern  merely  seeks  her." 

The  uncultivated  man  continually  reveals  the  possibility, 
but  only  the  possibility,  of  a  non-empirical  life.  Poetry 
precedes  prose;  religion  comes  before  science,  and  myth  be- 
fore history.  Love  of  ceremony,  desire  for  play,  which 
mark  the  career  of  the  nature-man,  reveal  the  same  impulse 
to  raise  his  being  above  his  surroundings ;  and  the  beginnings 
of  art  and  religion  inaugurate  the  procession  toward  the  life 
human.  Therefore,  to  consider  the  man  of  nature  a  coarse 
utilitarian,  is  to  ignore  the  testimony  of  both  beauty  and 
worship,  just  as  it  is  to  invest  the  naive  mind  with  a  con- 
tent which  could  only  arise  in  an  age  of  science  and  industry 
like  our  own. 

The  poetical  temj)erament  of  the  uncultured  man,  as 
well  as  his  superstitious  nature,  made  possible  the  transition 


88    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

to  a  higher  form  of  mental  and  moral  life.  Sense,  which 
surrounds  man,  does  not  wholly  envelop  his  being,  and  in  the 
midst  of  naturism  there  is  still  the  possibility  of  abstract 
consideration;  though  not  yet  himself,  man  has  risen  above 
the  limits  of  mere  hedonism.  Psychologically  viewed,  the 
mind  manifests  a  conflict  between  sensation  and  ideation,  so 
that  the  primitive  man  cannot  fail  to  distinguish  between 
the  immediate  external  impression  and  its  inner  counter- 
part. Between  their  merits  he  may  then  decide.  The  in- 
fluence of  dreams,  the  whole  range  of  spiritism  in  nature- 
peoples,  show  how  impossible  it  is  for  purely  empirical  con- 
siderations to  fetter  the  growing  mind.  Nature  cannot  con- 
tain man,  even  when  he  is  little  better  than  an  earth-born 
creature;  in  his  very  weakness,  he  is  able  to  transcend  his 
immediacy,  just  as  his  instincts  allow  him  to  rise  above 
animality. 

In  the  long  process  of  humanizing  man,  the  constant 
element  is  life,  whose  value  is  realized  in  appropriate  ways 
upon  the  several  stages  of  mankind's  development.  The 
man  of  nature  can  perceive  the  good  and  bad  effects  of  acts 
which  at  a  more  advanced  period  will  be  called  virtue  and 
vice,  but  he  will  do  so  without  relating  these  to  the  total 
issue  of  human  life.  But  as  society  becomes  more  and  more 
complex  and  its  essence  more  internal,  the  immediate  in- 
terest in  conduct  becomes  subordinate  to  the  ultimate  pur- 
pose of  mankind's  existence.  A  practical  utility,  which  con- 
nects itself  with  man's  immediate  life  cannot  stand  for  the 
life-ideal,  inasmuch  as  man  is  destined  to  detach  himself 
from  nature  and  elaborate  a  form  of  conduct  peculiar  to 
himself.  Hedonism  can  never  be  humanism.  Yet  the  same 
argument  which  is  directed  against  an  earth-bound  good  in 
the  form  of  pleasure  may  be  turned  against  rigorism,  which 
insists  upon  an  isolated  ideal  in  the  form  of  self-styled  virtue, 
to  be  followed  for  its  own  sake.  The  dangerous  element 
involved  herein  consists  in  not  reckoning  with  man,  who  is 
necessitated  to  live  his  life  in  a  human  way.  Rigorism  re- 
jects the  idea  of  origin,  and  protests  against  a  time-serving 
utilirianism ;  and  rigorism  is  unwilling  to  consider  the  goal 
of  life  and  urge  the  good  because  of  its  value  for  humanity. 
Its  autonomy  is  so  misleading  that  the  teleological  import  of 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    89 

life  is  lost,  and  discredit  is  thrown  upon  the  love  of  virtue. 
When  the  theory  learns  from  naturism  to  hold  fast  to  the  life- 
interest,  and  accepts  from  rationalism  the  suggestion  that 
such  an  interest  must  never  be  an  immediate  one,  the  way 
is  prepared  for  a  view  which  shall  reconcile  these  extremes, 
and  end  a  time-honored  conflict. 

As  for  nature,  her  function  is  best  understood  in  the 
light  of  possibility  rather  than  necessity,  as  promise  rather 
than  performance.  The  earthly  life  of  man  is  neither  to  be 
praised  nor  blamed,  but  made  use  of  for  a  higher  purpose; 
when  this  is  done  a  new  life  begins  for  man — incipit  vita 
nova.  The  excess  or  overflow  of  nature  is  humanity. 
Matter  is  less  than  the  physical  universe;  reality  is  greater 
than  the  cosmos;  hence  the  possibility  of  cosmology  and  on- 
tology. In  the  larger  world  there  is  room  for  both  physical 
and  ethical  views  of  mankind.  Mere  naturism  may  be  led 
to  say,  "We  are  creatures  of  earth,  after  all;"  the  spirit  in 
man  rejoins,  "But  something  akin  to  the  sea  and  the  sky." 
And  it  is  this  restless,  upward-striving  tendency  which  leads 
us  to  express  the  conviction  that  man  has  an  ethical  destiny. 

Humanity  can  never  be  wholly  hedonic;  the  very  fact 
that  the  pleasure  is  man's  pleasure,  that  the  pain  is  man's 
pain  changes  a  merely  psychic  experience  into  something 
whose  value  is  estimated  in  terms  of  a  world-life.  Upon  the 
basis  of  such  simple  feeling,  humanity  judges  conduct  and 
sets  a  total  estimate  upon  the  world  of  life  in  optimistic  or 
pessimistic  theory.  Further,  the  human  feeling  constantly 
passes  over  from  the  bodily  form  of  passion  to  the  mental 
form  of  sentiment,  and  man  is  persuaded  to  pursue  aesthetic 
feelings  which  have  only  an  ideational  existence.  Humanity 
is  safe  in  the  hands  of  primitive  man  who  is  no  more  sub- 
merged by  utilitarianism  than  is  the  man  of  the  present  with 
his  mechanical  science  and  industrial  ideals.  Dreams  and 
fancies,  myths  and  traditions,  however  crude  they  may  be, 
reveal  the  fact  that  as  poetry  is  primitive,  so  the  early  man 
is  ideational  in  his  mental  life.  When  humanity  is  called 
upon  to  arise  in  nature  it  is  permitted  to  pass  on  to  some- 
thing more  in  keeping  with  its  spiritual  nature. 

It  is  the  implicit  humanity  in  man  which  makes  him 
trustworthy  even  when   upon  the  naturistic  level,   and   for 


90    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

this  reason  we  are  enabled  to  adopt  a  consistent  attitude 
toward  the  primitive  form  of  moral  life.  Were  ethics  re- 
duced to  a  sharp  either — or,  and  the  terms  of  the  disjunction 
included  hedonism  and  rigorism,  we  should  find  ourselves  in 
the  usual  predicament  of  the  moralist  who  must  decide 
against  either  his  body  or  his  mind.  But  the  plan  which 
humanity  has  arranged  for  mankind  suffers  us  to  regard 
naturism  as  something  temporary,  although  by  means  of  this 
contact  with  the  world  man  acquires  certain  interests  which 
never  abandon  him.  The  scientific  order  which  phenomena 
follow,  and  the  aesthetic  interpretation  of  which  they  are 
capable,  reveal  the  relative  value  of  the  natural  order,  and 
no  ethical  theory  which  aims  to  explain  man  and  to  justify 
his  ideals  can  afford  to  treat  nature  cavalierly.  This  does 
not  mean  that  man  is  to  subordinate  himself  to  an  order  of 
being  which  cannot  contain  him,  or  to  subsume  his  nature  to 
a  phase  of  reality  so  ill-equipped  with  the  marks  necessary  to 
define  him.  Nature,  which,  in  connection  with  the  body, 
gives  man  feeling  and  consciousness,  is  through  with  man 
when  in  the  exercise  of  judgment  he  elaborates  forms  for  his 
thought  and  values  for  his  life.  Pure  cognition  and  culture 
are  not  attributes  of  the  material  organization  with  which 
nature  prepares  humanity  for  life. 

In  itself,  the  naturistic  system  of  ethics  is  used  to  explain 
how  living  morality  began,  just  as  it  is  further  advanced  as 
an  ideal  for  life  to-day.  Thus  viewed,  it  is  supposed  to  satis- 
fy the  intellect,  which  has  a  certain  curiosity  about  the  course 
which  humanity  has  pursued,  as  also  to  content  his  striving 
will.  In  the  first  instance  it  succeeds  in  depicting  the 
program  of  primitive  life,  for  its  obvious  principles  are  finely 
adapted  to  the  needs  and  aims  experienced  by  nature-peoples; 
but  beyond  this  point  of  view  of  reminiscence,  its  powers 
hardly  extend,  since  the  man  of  inner  culture  and  artificial 
civilization  has  so  departed  from  nature  as  to  make  its  ideals 
invalid.  True  it  is  that  naturistic  elements  will  ever  sur- 
vive, since  man's  change  of  interest  does  not  effect  any 
change  of  metaphysical  position,  and,  forever  shut  in  by 
temporo-spatial  limits,  humanity  will  not  cease  to  enjoy  and" 
to  display  a  certain  trait  of  earth-life.  It  is  only  when 
philosophy  attempts  to  transform   the  scaffolding  into   the 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    91 


structure  that  criticism  points  out  the  peril  of  the  view  enter- 
tained; then  it  appears  that  nature  is  not  culture,  that 
hedonism  is  not  humanism. 

The  inherent  claims  of  naturistic  ethics  cannot  be  dis- 
patched briefly,  and  even  the  most  thorough-going  form  of 
criticism  cannot  hope  to  withdraw  man  from  nature.  Two 
general  forms  of  theorizing  have  ever  characterized  man's 
reaction  upon  his  experience,  and  in  two  distinct  moods  he 
has  inquired  concerning  the  value  of  his  life  in  nature.  The 
first  of  these  consists  of  a  hedonism^  which  is  engrossed  with 
the  content  of  naturistic  life  as  this  is  given  in  the  feelings 
of  pleasure  and  pain;  the  second  reveals  a  eudaemonism, 
which  is  centered  upon  the  form  of  man's  original  life  as 
this  is  found  in  immediacy  of  contact  with  nature,  and  real- 
ized in  a  course  of  natural  activity.  Where  one  tries  to  re- 
present human  happiness  as  consisting  in  the  passive  recep- 
tion of  pleasure,  the  other  attempts  to  explain  this  by  an 
appeal  to  the  active  pursuit  of  natural  interests.  The  two 
are  united  by  a  common  faith  in  the  natural  order,  as  well 
as  by  a  single  fear  of  departing  from  the  domain  of  im- 
mediate interest,  and  in  general  they  counsel  man  to  forego 
the  ideal  while  he  strives  to  content  and  to  perfect  himself 
in  the  world  of  given  forms. 


II 

THE  FEELING  OF  HUMANITY  IN  PLEASURE 

AND  DESIRE 

For  the  preliminary  form  of  the  naturistic  doctrine  of 
life  no  better  term  can  be  found  than  that  of  hedonism, 
which  expresses  the  sense  of  man's  immediate  life  in  the 
world.  While  the  term  is  not  the  most  inclusive  one,  it 
keeps  before  our  minds  the  fact  that  such  a  naturistic  content 
is  definable  in  terms  of  pleasure-pain  only.  At  the  same 
time,  the  program  of  the  school  cannot  long  continue  upon 
this  limited  basis,  and  further  conceptions  enter  to  qualify 
the  source  of  moral  life  in  nature,  as  also  to  extend  its  sway. 
As  nature  cannot  quite  contain  overflowing  humanity,  so 
hedonism  fails  to  account  for  the  operations  of  human 
nature,  even  when  upon  the  lowest  plane  of  activity.  The 
first  conflict  which  engages  the  attention  of  the  hedonist  is 
one  which  concerns  the  very  source  of  the  principle,  for  it 
appears  at  the  outset  that  passive  feeling  cannot  account 
for  active  humanity,  whose  nature  is  more  consistently  ex- 
pressed in  terms  of  desire.  The  adoption  of  such  an  active 
principle  carries  hedonism  forward  with  unexpected  strength 
and  rapidity,  so  that  the  hedonic  subject  is  soon  found  striv- 
ing for  human  selfhood  and  worldhood.  The  division  of 
interest  involved  in  this  conflict  raises  man  above  mere 
nature,  for  the  claims  of  ego  and  alter  have  to  be  settled  in 
a  higher  court  than  naturism  can  institute.  Hence  results 
an  appeal  to  an  ethical  principle  as  such,  and  the  conflict  with 
altruism  involves  the  admission  of  a  moralism.  Such  is  the 
course  of  the  hedonic  argument. 

I — LIFE    ACCORDING   TO    PLEASURE-PAIN 

The  attempt  to  account  for  human  conduct  as  the  pur- 
suit of  pleasure  is  the  ideal  which  lies  at  the  heart  of  pure 

92 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    93 

hedonism.  To  realize  this  it  avails  itself  of  a  mental  process 
which  stands  out  in  amazing  prominence  among  a  host  of 
other  conscious  concerns,  and  in  the  beginning  the  hedonic 
theory  succeeds  in  carrying  off  the  human  soul.  In  the 
totality  of  human  consciousness,  the  strategic  position  oc- 
cupied by  pleasure  is  comparable  only  to  the  analogous  place 
of  the  quality  of  sweetness  among  sensations.  In  all  prob- 
ability, there  is  some  explanation  for  the  fact  that  the  sensa- 
tion of  sweetness  interests  us  more  than  such  qualities  as 
sourness,  saltiness,  redness,  blueness,  etc.;  for  there  is  no 
inherent  reason  why  such  an  ordinary  sensation  should  in- 
vade our  sensational  consciousness  and  extend  its  sway  over 
into  the  domain  of  affection,  so  that  to  be  sweet  is  an  ex- 
pression almost  equivalent  to  being  pleasant.  This  is  like- 
wise the  extraordinary  condition  of  things  present  in  the 
feeling  of  pleasure,  which  seems  to  mean  more  to  us  than 
either  clear  cognition  or  vigorous  volition.  In  the  face  of 
pleasure  man  can  never  be  quite  himself,  for  his  interests 
are  warped  in  the  direction  of  the  absorbing  hedonic  pro- 
cess. Hedonism  assumes  that  pleasure  is  real  in  itself  and 
realizable  in  experience,  so  that  the  moral  subject  has  only 
to  choose  what  is  fit  and  the  felicific  ideal  will  be  attained. 

Without  consulting  humanity  as  to  its  proposed  treat- 
ment of  man,  the  theory  is  conceived  in  naivete  and  soon 
ends  in  hopeless  dogmatism ;  therefore,  it  becomes  difficult  to 
present  the  question  which  inquires  whether  man  is  actually 
seeking  pleasure,  or  whether  his  life  in  humanity  consists  of 
happiness.  Sensations  of  sweetness  and  feelings  of  pleasure 
are  liable  to  throw  the  introspective  apparatus  off  its  center, 
with  the  result  of  producing  bad  psychology  and  worse  ethics; 
and  we  may  wonder  whether,  after  all,  we  shall  find  the 
genuine  sense  of  humanity  lurking  behind  these  excessively 
interesting  experiences.  We  identify  a  man  by  his  profes- 
sion, although  the  public  often  measures  him  according  to 
his  pastimes;  so  in  the  hedonic  atmosphere,  we  shall  try 
to  discover  how  man  conducts  his  total  life,  however  difficult 
it  may  be  to  pursue  such  ephemeral  objects  as  human  pleas- 
ures. 

What  at  the  outset  seems  so  obvious  as  the  pleasures  of 
men  soon  becomes  a  baffling  probclm.     We  hardly  recognize 


94    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

the  genuine  man  in  his  holiday  attire.  Man  is  striving  with 
nature  in  order  to  realize  himself  as  a  human  being,  while 
he  is  constantly  undergoing  suffering  with  the  result  of  ap- 
preciating humanity.  How  shall  we  follow  the  particular 
activities  of  his  character  when  he  assumes  the  role  of  a 
hedonic  hero  who  seeks  self-realization  in  passing  pleasure 
and  immediate  happiness?  Hedonistic  psychology  is  not 
sufficient  unto  these  demands,  and  it  fails  to  account  for  man 
as  a  mere  pleasure-seeker,  who  really  acts  with  a  secret 
motive;  for  in  his  search  for  happiness  he  cannot  hide  the 
freedom  of  his  feelings  or  that  larger  liberty  which  is  pos- 
sessed by  the  human  spirit.  It  is  man  who  seeks  enjoyment 
— rhomme  s'amuse.  The  hedonic  theory  has  claimed  hap- 
piness for  man  without  inquiring  whether  man  can  contain 
it;  nor  has  it  waited  to  investigate  the  eudaemonistic  ques- 
tion concerning  the  nature  of  happiness.  Both  humanity  and 
happiness  are  ideas  which  need  to  be  clarified. 

When  the  hedonic  argument  is  carefully  stated,  its  lead- 
ing principles  probably  cannot  be  denied  validity,  however 
subordinate  to  the  general  trend  of  life  they  may  be.  It  is 
customary  to  advance  the  contrary  theory  of  rigorism  as  the 
cure  for  hedonism,  although  it  is  not  necessary  to  run  this 
risk  of  failure  to  correct  a  theory  so  insufficient  as  a  repre- 
sentative of  naturism.  Naive  naturalism  is  forever  opposed 
to  a  rationalism  which  employs  the  hedonic  "calculus"  and 
the  utilitarian  "demonstration." 

From  the  standpoint  of  nature,  it  will  appear  that  pleas- 
ure is  not  the  organic  impulse  in  human  nature.  Yet  in 
this  way  has  historical  hedonism  committed  itself.  "Nature," 
said  Bentham,  "has  placed  mankind  under  the  governance 
of  two  sovereign  masters,  pain  and  pleasure."  (Prin.  of 
Morals  and  Legislation,  Ch.  i .)  Before  him,  Hume  had 
pledged  humanity  to  hedonism  by  saying:  "The  chief  spring 
or  actuating  principle  of  the  human  mind  is  pleasure  or  pain ; 
and  when  these  sensations  are  removed,  both  from  our 
thought  and  feeling,  we  are,  in  a  great  measure,  incapable  of 
passion  or  action,  of  desire  or  volition."  (Treatise  of 
Human  Nature,  in.  3,  i.)  This  is  not  true,  as  history 
and  experience  show:  nature  has  not  abdicated  in  favor  of 
feeling;  human  nature  has  not  resigned  at  the  request  of 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    95 

some  of  its  subordinates.  In  urging  its  claims,  hedonism 
argues  in  the  same  circle  which  is  to  ensnare  rigorism.  We 
are  not  happy,  because  we  are  pleased;  we  do  not  perform 
duty,  because  we  ought. 

Such  flat  hedonism  can  make  no  headway  in  discoursing 
upon  human  nature,  for  it  considers  man  apart  from  the 
animating  principle  of  his  human  life.  In  the  ceaseless 
struggle  for  humanity  and  the  deathless  interests  which  are 
involved  therein,  the  prominence  of  pleasure  constitutes  a 
serious  question.  Parallel  to  the  mystery  of  pain,  whereby 
we  wonder  why  we  are  ever  called  upon  to  suffer,  is  the 
mystery  of  pleasure  which  falsely  persuades  man  that  the 
total  interest  of  his  life  consists  in  avoiding  pain  and  in 
enjoying  pleasure.  On  this  subject,  man  is  inflicted  with 
hypcraesthesia,  and  it  is  only  because  subjective  feeling  is 
magnified  far  beyond  the  range  of  either  cognition  or  activity 
that  a  hedonic  view  of  life  is  able  to  present  a  plausible 
argument.  True  it  is  that  man  can  pursue  pain  as  a  desir- 
able end,  but  the  majority  of  mankind  are  convinced  that 
pleasure  possesses  an  intrinstic  value,  and  it  is  with  difficulty 
that  such  an  optimistic  illusion  is  dispelled.  Man  is  so  con- 
stituted that  the  process  of  feeling  is  the  invariable 
concomitant  of  action,  and  the  prominence  which  pleasure 
and  pain  occupy  leads  man  to  regard  them  as  magisterial. 
Life  cannot  go  on  without  feeling,  nor  can  it  go  on  without 
breathing.  But  the  end  of  life  consists  in  neither  affection 
nor  respiration. 

Upon  strictly  hedonistic  grounds,  the  quality  of  feeling 
cannot  be  affirmed  in  distinction  from  quantity,  and  it  is 
elsewhere  that  relief  must  be  sought.  The  calculating  per- 
son who  balances  pleasure  with  pleasure,  and  pain  with  pain, 
has  only  a  quantitative  hedonometer,  and  qualitative  analysis 
involves  further  considerations.  These  appear  when  feeling 
is  freed  from  will  and  intellect  and  regarded  as  an  affair  of 
taste  or  preference;  also,  when  the  totality  of  human  life  is 
weighed  against  the  entirety  of  nature,  and  man  adapted  to 
his  human  vocation.  The  hedonic  man,  who  seeks  to  weigh 
earth-bound  joys  against  one  another,  is  vastly  different  from 
the  human  man  who,  in  all  the  freedom  of  feeling,  affirms 
his  being  in  independence  of  his  habitat.     Mill  was  right  in 


96    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

affirming  the  possibility  of  a  qualitative  hedonism,  but  his 
utilitarian  system  does  not  enable  him  to  see  the  fruition  of 
this  hope,  and  to  all  intents  no  advance  was  made  beyond 
usual  hedonism.  The  qualitative  view  depends  for  its  con- 
ception upon  a  qualitative  distinction  between  humanity  and 
nature,  and  this  advance  is  one  which  the  hedonist  is  not 
prepared  to  make. 

Pleasure — pain,  not  feeling  itself,  has  been  the  funda- 
mental tone  of  the  hedonic  scheme.  Feeling  alone,  even 
when  viewed  in  a  more  penetrating  light,  is  lacking  in  force 
and  direction ;  it  is  essentially  passive  and  unintelligent.  To 
sway  man  for  good  or  bad,  feeling  stands  in  need  of  idea, 
toward  which  the  subject  may  urge  himself;  otherwise  he  is 
blind  in  his  conduct,  and  cannot  attain  either  to  hedonism  or 
moralism.  The  want  of  an  hedonic  goal  is  appreciated  by 
the  second  and  third  types  of  naturism:  utilitarianism  and 
social  evolution,  one  of  which  proposes  the  ideal  of  "greatest 
happiness,"  the  other  that  of  "most  perfect  health."  Both 
confess  the  resultlessness  of  a  pure  hedonism,  which  cannot 
escape  from  its  own  subjectivism ;  both  indicate  how  necessary 
it  is  for  man  to  depart  from  his  native  immediacy  and  assert 
some  kind  of  humanity,  whether  of  a  political  or  social 
nature.  Yet  all  three  forms  of  naturism  are  blind  to  the 
fact  that  man's  human  life  advances  by  stages,  of  which  that 
of  nature  is  but  preparatory ;  oblivious  also  of  the  thought 
that  the  emancipation  of  the  human  spirit  is  effected  by  some 
migh  :icr  and  centrifugal  impulse  than  the  desire  for  pleasure. 
Such  is  the  anti-climax  to  which  hedonism  leads. 

2 — THE    HEDONIC    CALCULUS 

In  the  midst  of  this  general  assumption  that,  in  his  hu- 
manity, man  is  purely  hedonic,  there  appears  a  particular 
method  which  enables  him  to  perfect  himself  as  a  creature 
destined  for  happiness.  Wanting  in  the  early  forms  of 
hedonism  and  abandoned  by  the  latter  ones,  there  is  found  in 
Bentham's  school  a  special  hedonic  calculus,  which  seeks  to 
determine  right  and  wrong,  not  immediately  upon  the  basis 
of  either  intuition  or  instinct,  but  upon  the  basis  of  a  mathe- 
matical method,  quite  in  keeping  with  the  quantitative  form 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    97 

of  the  hedonic  doctrine.  Bentham  analyzed  pleasure  in  such 
a  way  as  to  bring  out  some  seven  attributes — intensity,  dura- 
tion, certainty,  propinquity,  fecundity,  purity,  extent — upon 
the  basis  of  which  the  hedonic  subject  was  supposed  to  sum 
up  the  tendencies  of  the  act  under  question  and,  by  striking  a 
balance,  decide  upon  its  moral  merit.  (Principles  of  Morals, 
Ch.  IV ).  But  a  man  of  living  instincts  is  no  more  likely  to 
determine  his  conduct  by  repeating, 

"Intense,  long,  certain,  speedy,  fruitful,  pure — 

Such  marks  in  pleasures  and  in  pains  endure," 
than  the  man  of  clear  perception  is  to  guide  his  mind  to 
truth  by  repeating, 

"Barbara,  Celarent,  Darii,  Ferioque  prioris; 

Cesare,  Camestres,  Festino  Baroko,  secundae" 
The  sound  naturism  of  man,  which  unites  him  with  the 
genuine  order  of  things,  and  makes  it  possible  for  him  to 
participate  in  the  program  of  his  own  nature,  renders  the 
calculus  of  feeling  useless.  Man  in  his  striving  and  suffering 
cannot  make  use  of  such  artificial  calculations. 

The  familiar  rebuttal  of  such  a  mechanical  summation  of 
pleasures  consists  of  the  application  of  those  mental  func- 
tions which  usually  carry  on  mental  syntheses,  but  which  for 
some  inscrutable  reason  are  inactive  within  the  felicific  field. 
And  thus  it  comes  about  that  where  a  mechanical  summa- 
tion of  things  is  possible  upon  a  natural  basis  where  one 
deals,  for  example,  with  coins,  books,  and  the  like,  it  has 
no  place  in  a  psychic  realm  of  liquid  experiences.  In  the 
elaboration  of  a  concept,  the  necessary  elements  are  identified 
by  means  of  abstraction  and  then  united  through  generaliza- 
tion. Behind  the  logical  process  of  abstraction  stands  at- 
tention, while  memory  makes  possible  the  act  of  generaliza- 
tion ;  and  percepts  easily  lend  themselves  to  this  dual  method 
of  analysis  and  synthesis  peculiar  to  the  organization  of  sense 
into  reason.  The  attempt  to  react  upon  the  feelings  of 
plc?»sure  and  pain  with  the  aim  of  producing  a  general  feeling 
of  happiness  comparable  to  the  synthesis  of  sensations,  in  the 
concept,  ends  in  failure;  not,  however,  because  psychical 
combinations  are  impossible  in  themselves,  but  because  at- 
tention and  memory,  wherein  the  hope  of  these  syntheses 
lies,  are  not  applicable  to  the  affectional  process  of  conscious- 


98    VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

ncss. 

Hedonic  self-realization  seems  doomed  to  defeat  in  the 
first  encounter,  inasmuch  as  the  instantaneous  and  static 
forms  of  pleasure  permit  of  nothing  cumulative.  To 
abstract  the  pleasurable  feeling  from  a  mass  of  conscious  ex- 
periences so  that  it  shall  exist  by  itself  in  a  peculiar  mental 
isolation  is  beyond  the  power  of  attention,  and  probably  for 
the  reason  that  this  process  is  itself  a  mental  interest  which 
cannot  be  turned  upon  itself.  It  was  in  the  perception  of 
some  such  truth  that  the  ancients  developed  the  proverb  of 
the  "Sweet  elbow,"  which  represented  the  tantalizing 
quality  of  that  pleasure  which,  in  its  close  association  with 
the  mind  of  man,  could  not  be  made  the  object  of  external 
apprehension.  Plato  discourses  upon  it  in  connection  with 
his  famous  erotic  and  says  that  "the  'Sweet  elbow'  of  which 
the  proverb  speaks,  is  really  derived  from  the  long  and  diffi- 
cult arm  of  the  Nile."  (Phaedrus,  257.)  Desire  for 
pleasure  is  like  the  hunger  and  thirst  of  Tantalus  whose  lips 
cannot  quite  touch  the  waters,  whose  hand  just  fails  to 
grasp  the  clusters  of  over-hanging  fruit.  Mental  activity, 
which  exerts  itself  in  conation  and  cognition,  is  not  alert 
enough  to  seize  pleasure,  and  the  attempt  to  realize  such  an 
evanescent  quality  is  a  mere  grasping  after  water. 

In  the  same  provoking  fashion  the  mental  function  of 
memory  reveals  its  unwillingness  to  reproduce  feeling,  for 
when  we  seek  to  recall  pleasure  we  recollect  only  the  fact  of 
having  experienced  it,  which  now  by  way  of  contrast  may 
cause  a  certain  sense  of  pain  as  we  realize  that  the  pleasure 
is  gone.  Sensations  are  memorized  and  reappear  as  ideas, 
or  mental  images  of  external  impressions ;  impulses  return  to 
consciousness  in  ideo-motor  forms  which  enable  us  to  repeat 
our  acts  and  thus  gradually  perfect  them,  as  in  cases  of  feats 
of  skill ;  but  feelings  remain  aloof  from  the  mind  and  when 
they  occur  again  they  appear  in  new  and  original  form. 
Affection  is  not  capable  of  that  synthetic  process  which,  in 
the  case  of  cognition,  produces  class-terms,  whether  in  a  real 
or  conceptual  form.  The  place  of  pleasure  is  solitary,  and 
it  is  because  of  its  peculiar  behaviour  that  some  have  ever 
regarded  it  as  a  mere  absence  of  painful  feeling;  its  place 
can  never  be  anything  but  peripheral,  for  it  is  removed  from 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    99 

the  central  processes  of  knowing  and  doing.  Hence,  a  philo- 
sophic view  of  happiness,  such  as  springs  from  the  eudaemon- 
istic  theory  of  life,  makes  no  attempt  to  employ  pleasure, 
which  would  seem  to  be  so  akin  to  the  subject,  but  concerns 
itself  wholly  with  the  claims  of  intellect  and  will.  More- 
over, the  burden  of  life  is  not  to  be  expressed  in  terms  of 
unpleasantness,  and  the  enthusiasm  for  the  world,  which 
marks  the  career  of  the  victorious  personality,  consists  in  no 
feeling  of  pleasure.  He  who  succeeds  is  beyond  both  pain 
and  pleasure,  and  a  hedonic  estimate  of  life  is  too  half- 
hearted for  a  genuine  humanity,  whose  emotions  are  infra- 
painful  and  ^«^r<7-pleasant. 

The  mystery  of  pleasure,  which  persuades  man  that,  as 
the  sweet  sensation  is  apparently  preferable  to  others  whose 
status  is  really  the  same,  his  humanity  should  realize  itself  in 
hedonism,  has  thus  warped  man's  estimate  of  life  and  led  him 
to  elevate  to  the  highest  station  a  form  of  consciousness  which 
is  no  primus  inter  pares,  but  merely  one  among  many  other 
psychic  elements.  There  is  nothing  extraordinary  about 
pleasure.  Why,  then,  should  hedonic  philosophy  think  to 
subsume  all  human  striving  under  that  particular  head,  and 
thus  represent  the  endless  affirmation  of  man's  spiritual  na- 
ture as  a  mere  craving  for  immediate  enjoyment?  There  is 
material  for  a  pessimistic  philosophy  in  the  recognition  that 
feeling  is  so  irrational,  whereby  pleasure  so  often  affiliates 
itself  and  identifies  its  subject  with  forms  of  activity  which 
are  vicious  and  absurd.  Where  will  and  intellect  follow 
the  general  analogy  of  the  real  world,  and  make  possible  a 
voluntaristic  and  intellectualistic  view,  feeling  is  subjective 
and  arbitrary,  and  does  not  readily  lend  itself  to  the  obvious 
plan  of  humanity. 

3 — THE  HEDONIC  LAW 

As  the  general  sense  of  human  welfare,  which  was 
naively  expressed  in  mere  pleasure — pain,  was  quickened  by 
an  attempted  hedonic  calculus,  so  it  was  practically  refuted 
by  the  application  of  the  hedonic  law.  Aristotle  was  not 
unmindful  of  the  fact  that  feeling  has  significance  as  well  as 
mere  feltness,  for  he  said,  "To  feel  pleasure  or  pain  signifies 
to  experience  an  activity  in  a  mean  function  of  the  sense- 


loo  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

organ  relative  to  good  or  bad."  (Psy.  Bk.  in,  Ch.  vii.) 
In  modern  times,  the  utilitarian  school  indicated  a  deliberate 
departure  from  the  mechanical  computation  of  pleasures  and 
pains,  and  the  ideal  of  utility,  while  not  non-hedonic,  was 
one  remove  from  the  immediate  experience  of  felicific  feel- 
ing. Utilitarianism  thus  sought  to  lay  down  laws  for  the 
promotion  of  general  happiness,  and  its  psychology,  which 
investigates  hedonistic  habits  and  pleasure-associations,  tacit- 
ly admits  that  pleasure  is  not  to  be  had  for  the  asking.  To 
admit  the  paradox  of  pleasure  would  threaten  the  utilitarian 
formulation  of  the  happiness  problem,  but  the  school  no 
longer  trusted  in  attention  and  memory  as  direct  methods  of 
realizing  and  summarizing  pleasure;  for  it  entrusted  its 
argument  to  the  more  general  processes  of  association  and 
habit.  The  change  in  terminology  is  likewise  significant, 
for  instead  of  particular  pleasure  with  its  array  of  clearly 
defined  attributes,  we  hear  of  "happiness"  and  "utility." 
Pleasure  still  exists  in  the  mind  of  the  hedonist,  but  its 
character  is  that  of  an  after-image. 

The  fate  of  pleasure  and  pain  in  the  hands  of  the  evolu- 
tionist is  more  decisive  and,  for  a  time,  it  seemed  as  though 
such  a  serious  and  pessimistic  view  of  life  would  end  all 
hedonistic  speculations.  In  some  ways,  the  evolutionist  is 
more  vigorous  an  opponent  of  sheer  hedonism  than  the  rigor- 
ist  himself,  inasmuch  as  the  latter  looks  upon  pleasure  as  a 
worthy  foe,  and  does  not  think  it  beneath  his  dignity  to  com- 
bat It.  Naturistic  evolution  represents  pleasure  and  the 
ideal,  not  as  though  they  were  upon  the  same  level,  but  in 
such  a  way  that  pleasure  is  looked  upon  as  something  pre- 
paratory; the  scheme  is  a  vertical  rather  than  a  horizontal 
one.  Pleasure  is  not  rebutted,  but  simply  relegated  to  an 
inferior  position ;  happiness  is  neither  praised  nor  blamed, 
but  set  aside  in  favor  of  something  hygienic.  Human  feel- 
ing is  subordinated  to  human  condition,  and  pleasure-pain 
becomes  purely  symptomatic.  Nineteenth  century  thought 
has  not  failed  to  note  the  infinite  seriousness  of  life,  and  the 
moralist  is  no  longer  inclined  to  consider  human  welfare  in 
terms  of  mere  pleasure.  In  the  present  state  of  human  ex- 
istence, it  is  sufficient  simply  to  be;  to  be  happy  is  another 
consideration. 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  loi 

Spencer's  withdrawal  from  traditional  hedonism,  how- 
ever, is  not  complete,  for  in  raising  the  optimistico-pessimistic 
question,  which  he  likewise  fails  to  discuss,  he  affirms  that 
"life  is  good  or  bad,  according  as  it  does,  or  does  not,  bring 
a  surplus  of  agreeable  feeling."  Good  is  good  because  it 
aids  life,  always  assuming,  which  the  evolutionist  can  hardly 
do  with  justice,  that  life  brings  more  happiness  than  misery, 
while  virtue  consists  in  promoting  "happiness-producing  con- 
duct." Now  there  is  nothing  in  Spencer's  nritrinal  concep- 
tion of  conduct  which  demands  this  hedonic  element. 
Spencer's  more  consistent  view  entertains  the  notion  that 
pleasure-giving  acts  are  those  which  are  life-producing,  while 
pain-giving  ones  are  life-decreasing.  This  hedonic  law,  may 
be  unsatisfactory  in  itself,  but  has  the  effect  of  relegating 
psychological  hedonism  to  a  secondary  position;  life  is  too 
vast  to  subordinate  itself  to  pleasure,  but  it  can  make  use  of 
that  feeling  in  realizing  itself  in  the  organism.  "Every 
pleasure  increases  vitality;  every  pain  decreases  vitality. 
Every  pleasure  raises  the  tide  of  life;  every  pain  lowers  the 
tide  of  life."  It  is  plain  that  "life"  here  receives  only 
biological  consideration,  and  the  human  vocation  in  the 
achievement  of  ethical  destiny  is  ignored.  The  hedonic  law 
habitually  ignores  the  effect  of  stimulants  and  narcotics  in 
producing  pleasure  and  decreasing  life,  just  as  it  fails  to 
observe  that  the  entrance  of  destructive  germs,  like  those  of 
typhus  in  drinking-water,  may  prove  insipid  but  deadly. 
Probably  no  evolution  which  may  take  place  in  the  nervous 
system  will  ever  make  man  sensitive  to  such  influences. 

How  far  the  argument  from  pleasure  as  symptomatic  may 
lead  ultimately,  it  has  advanced  suflficiently  to  supersede 
pleasure  as  the  goal  of  life.  Stephen's  new  ideal  of  hygiene 
illustrates  this,  and  its  critical  value  may  be  appreciated, 
while  its  constructive  significance  is  ignored.  Instead  of  the 
political  aggregate,  Stephen  introduces  the  ideal  of  social 
organism;  in  place  of  happiness,  the  ideal  of  health.  As  a 
result,  the  utilitarian  maxim,  "Produce  the  greatest  happiness 
of  the  greatest  number,"  is  changed  to,  "Promote  the  health 
of  the  social  organism."  Still  another  point  of  critical  value, 
when  one  is  taking  leave  of  utilitarianism  is  Stephen's  pre- 
ference for  a  kind  of  organic  morality  over  what  he  calls 


_>^ 


I02  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

"instantaneous  morality."  This  is  a  genuine  appeal  to  sys- 
tem as  well  as  a  recognition  that  a  philosophy  of  life  is 
logically  prior  to  a  science  of  ethics,  which  hurriedly  seeks 
moral  truth  in  the  phenomenal  order  of  things. 

4 — LIFE   ACCORDING    TO   DESIRE 

Thus  far,  our  attempt  to  explain  the  consciousness  and 
conduct  of  man  while  still  upon  the  plane  of  nature,  has 
done  little  else  than  evoke  a  certain  confused  sense  of  human- 
ity in  the  form  of  unorganized  pleasure-pain.  Man  has 
been  viewed  mechanically  as  though  he  belonged  to  some 
other  than  a  human  order;  indeed,  the  very  naturism  which 
besets  him  has  failed  of  explanation.  To  account  for  human 
feelings  and  motive,  our  phsychological  analysis  must  pene- 
trate beneath  the  surface  of  pleasure  and  survey  man  in 
action  as  this  is  brought  about  by  desire.  For  it  is  desire 
which  naturizes  and  then  hedonizes  man,  not  pleasure.  De- 
sire is  the  nervous  system  of  hedonism;  pleasure  belongs 
to  the  sympathetic  one.  The  two  must  be  subjected 
to  some  convincing  form  of  distinction,  a  need  which  tradi- 
tional hedonism  has  not  recognized.  Nature  assumes  a 
great  responsibility  when  she  undertakes  to  perfect  any 
species,  and  how  much  greater  is  this  burden  when  man  is 
the  object  of  her  concern.  Can  such  responsibility 
be  discharged  by  means  of  pleasure-pain?  This 
seems  unlikely;  hence  we  turn  to  desire  as  something  more 
organic  than  superficial  feeling,  according  to  whose  psycho- 
logy man  is  attracted  by  pleasure  and  repelled  by  pain.  Such 
an  account  of  humanity  is  entirely  incomplete  and  represents 
only  the  exterior  of  its  being.  Assuming  the  realization  of 
the  hedonic  ideal,  who  would  choose  to  live  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  perfect  pleasure  without  the  instructive  influence  of 
pain?  Nature  never  taught  man  hedonism,  for  she  has 
laid  down  a  plan  wherein  pain  is  more  prominent  and  more 
important  than  pleasure. 

Desire  is  a  form  of  human  experience  which  includes 
both  pleasure  and  pain  and  does  not  fail  to  add  a  volitional 
quality.  Where  pure  conation  cannot  be  described,  except 
by  employing  the  language  of  either  sensation  or  afieaion, 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  103 

whereby  we  speak  of  a  "sense  of  striving"  or  a  "feeling  of 
effort,"  its  want  of  quality  may  be  made  up  by  the  aid  of 
desire.  This  psychic  compound  stands  for  a  fusion  of  feel- 
ing and  will.  For  this  reason  we  are  forbidden  to  regard 
desire  as  pleasure  and  aversion  as  pain,  for  desire  draws  a 
circle  about  all  feeling,  over  which  it  exercises  an  active 
lordship.  Thus  in  both  range  and  activity  does  desire  differ 
from  feeling.  A  glance  at  human  conduct  will  reveal  this, 
and  will  result  in  interpolating  pleasure  and  pains  as  means. 
Desire  arises  as  a  sense  of  want  which  looks  forward  to  a 
time  when  pleasure  shall  come  or  pain  depart ;  in  this  way,  it 
acts  as  a  motive  which  directs  man  toward  pleasure  and  away 
from  pain,  and  exists  in  a  psychological  moment  when  feeling 
is  not  yet  present.  By  its  very  nature,  feeling  is  something  to 
be  suffered  or  experienced  in  a  passive  manner,  while  desire  is 
active  and  is  the  cause  of  man's  movement  in  one  direction  or 
another.  Not  only  does  desire  reveal  its  motor-capacity  and 
thus  anticipate  pleasure,  but  it  possesses  a  certain  ideational 
form  which  extends  it  beyond  the  borders  of  feeling  in  the 
farther  direction.  Feeling  exists  for  its  feltness;  desire 
arises  for  the  sake  of  some  more  or  less  remote  goal,  and  thus 
we  speak  of  a  desire  for  something.  Hence,  as  its  volitional 
function  makes  it  prior  to  pleasure,  so  its  ideational  form 
exceeds  this  feeling  on  the  posterior  side.  The  hedonic  life 
is  a  life  according  to  desire. 

In  the  larger  history  of  psychology,  this  necessary  dis- 
tinction between  desire  and  pleasure  has  not  received  any  too 
much  recognition.  Nevertheless  we  have  the  classic  example 
of  an  ancient  Aristotle  as  well  as  the  instructive  error  of  a 
modern  Mill.  The  ancient  writer  all  but  affirms  that  we 
could  live  without  pleasure,  but  not  without  activity;  for, 
according  to  some  such  assumption,  he  claims  that  ''there  are 
many  things  about  which  we  should  be  diligent,  even  though 
they  brought  no  pleasure."  (Eth.  Nicom.  Bk.  x,  Ch.  2.) 
Aristotle  was  a  thorough  eudaemonist;  hence  any  decisions 
against  pleasure  which  he  may  hand  down  are  of  special 
weight  as  coming  from  one  who  assumed  no  rigorous  attitude 
toward  life.  He  removes  pleasure  from  the  causal  category 
by  distinguishing  it  from  all  forms  of  motion.  In  itself, 
pleasure  is  complete  in  the  present  where  it  is  experienced 


I04  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

instanter,  while  movement  is  marked  both  by  duration  and 
a  certain  end  to  be  accomplished.  **It  is  plain  then,  that 
pleasure  and  movement  must  be  different  from  one  another, 
and  that  pleasure  belongs  to  the  class  of  things  whole  and 
complete."  (lb.  Ch.  3.)  When  Aristotle  discusses  pleas- 
ure in  contrast  with  energy,  he  adjusts  these  disparate  func- 
tions by  declaring  that  "pleasure  does  not  come  into  being 
without  energy,  while  pleasure  perfects  every  energy."  (lb. 
Ch.  4.)  Full  justice  is  done  to  pleasure,  when  it  is  pointed 
out  that  men  do  not  really  grasp  at  pleasure,  but  at  life 
which,  however,  is  perfected,  though  not  produced,  by  pleas- 
ure. 

In  the  interests  of  utilitarianism,  Mill  found  it  con- 
venient to  take  up  the  same  question,  but  with  no  such 
psychological  success  as  accompanied  the  course  of  Aristotle's 
cudaemonism.  The  modern  utilitarian  starts  out  with  the 
idea  that  the  desire  for  happiness  is  the  leading  motive  in 
human  life,  and  is  thus  unable  to  comprehend  how  any  other 
end  could  be  the  goal  of  humanity.  Man  is  so  constituted 
that  he  can  desire  only  happiness,  and  to  conclude  that  he 
can  desire  anything  which  is  not  pleasant,  is  a  "physical  and 
metaphysical  impossibility."  (Utilitarianism,  Ch.  iv.)  The 
larger  statement  of  this  hedonic  circle  is  as  follows:  "desiring 
a  thing  and  finding  it  pleasant,  aversion  to  it  and  thinking  of 
it  as  painful,  are  phenomena  entirely  inseparable,  or  rather 
two  parts  of  the  same  phenomenon ;  in  strictness  of  language, 
two  different  modes  of  naming  the  same  psychological  fact." 
(lb.)  Nature,  however,  docs  not  seem  to  be  so  devoted  to 
hedonism,  for  in  her  plan  of  activity  and  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge  on  the  part  of  her  creatures,  who  are  supposed 
both  to  serve  and  to  recognize  her,  pain  is  no  insignificant 
factor,  and  one  which  organic  beings  are  not  prepared  to 
avoid.  Therefore,  to  make  immediate  pleasure  our  watch- 
word is  to  change  the  plan  of  the  universe  as  now  understood 
in  human  experience. 

5 — ^DESIRE  AND  HUMAN  STRIVING 

In  its  common  operations,  desire  is  singularly  oblivious 
of  pleasure  in  both  quantitative  and  qualitative  forms,  con- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  105 

tent  as  it  is  to  liberate  the  energy  of  human  volition  and  to 
attain  to  something  external  by  way  of  object.     Persistence 
oi  hfe,  not  pursuit  of  pleasure,  love  of  power,  not  desire  for 
happiness,  are  the  significant  marks  of  mankind.     Grecian 
and   Germanic   ideals,    far   removed   from  Anglo-American 
commercialism,  are  nearer  the  heart  of  living,  acting  human- 
ity.    There  is  no  hysteria  in  the  mind  of  Ibsen's  Ella  Ren- 
theim  when  in  the  play  which  bears  his  name,  she  reproaches 
John  Gabriel  Borkman  for  having  killed  the  lovelife  with- 
in her  by  saying,  "You  have  cheated  me  out  of  a  mother's 
joy  and  happiness  in  life—and  of  a  mother's  sorrows  and 
tears  as  well.     And  perhaps  this  is  the  heaviest  part  of  the 
loss  to  mer     (Act  11.)     Self-realization  looks  upon  pleas- 
ure and  pain  indifferently,  and  in  the  face  of  life,  whose 
metaphysical    realities   and    moral    responsibilities   must    be 
inet,  there  is  no  time  to  sit  down  and  calculate  the  sum  of 
pleasure,  or  estimate  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest 
number.     Pleasure  or  pain,  happiness  or  misery,  life  must 
be  carried  on,  man  be  himself,  and  humanity  rise  above  na- 
ture.    The  centrifugal  desire  for  life  never  waits  for  he- 
donistic estimates  to  be  made.     Man  is  human,  not  hedonic; 
he  must  have  life,  not  pleasure;  his  progress  is  made,  not 
inchwise,  but  by  cataclysm. 

To  come  into  contact  with  life,  not  merely  to  tajte  its 
possible  pleasures,  is  the  only  real  and  justifiable  aim  of  a 
nervous,  warm-blooded  animal  of  the  human  type.     Apart 
from  any  claims  of  the  ideal,  which  is  ever  superior  to  the 
hedonic  life,  the  exigencies  of  naturism  itself,  when  it  de- 
mands a  strong  and  healthy  animalism,  render  the  hedonis- 
tic scheme  quite  superfluous.     Let  us  live  and  persist  in  liv- 
ing; if  pleasure  come  we  will  welcome  it;  if  it  come  not, 
life   can   proceed   notwithstanding.     Naturism   should   pray 
for  deliverance  from  its  friends;  for,  the  realization  of  the 
preliminary,  the  fundamental  form  of  human  existence  de- 
pends upon  the  elimination  of  an  artificial  utilitarian  pro- 
gram.    For  this  reason,  it  need  no  longer  be  claimed  that 
hedonism  is  not  ideal  and  worthy;  it  is  sufficient  to  feel  that 
it  is  not  real  or  reliable,  and  he  who  would  find  himself  in 
nature,  and  live  out  his  life  in  animalism  must  seek  some 
other  than  a  hedonic  guide. 


io6  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

The  supremacy  of  desire  appears  as  soon  as  living  human- 
ity seeks  to  realize  itself,  and  no  trustworthy  picture  of  life 
could  be  portrayed  hedonically.  In  the  approach  to  life 
which  Rembrandt  and  Velasquez  represent,  there  is  no  sense 
of  hedonic  calculus,  however  much  of  desire  and  human  striv- 
ing may  enter  into  the  scene  and  reflect  themselves  in  the  liv- 
ing countenances  of  the  figures.  Holbein  returned  to 
humanity  without  adapting  any  hedonic  standards,  and  even 
the  earth-life  of  man,  as  shown  recently  in  Millet's  genre 
work,  finds  nature  without  making  hedonistic  calculations. 
Ibsen's  dramatis  personae  carry  on  their  conflict  with  the 
world  and  society  wholly  oblivious  of  utilitarianism,  while 
Wagner's  heroes  and  heroines  seek  redemption  from  life 
without  having  computed  its  pleasures  and  pains.  Schop- 
enhauer arrives  at  pessimism  by  observing  the  nature  of  the 
will  and  its  actual  fate  in  the  world  and  the  dreary  conclu- 
sion to  which  his  judgments  lead  is  due  to  no  pleasure-pain 
conflict.  Nietzsche's  ''blond  beast"  or  "Superman"  craves, 
not  pleasure,  but  power,  and  looks  to  nature  to  supply  him 
with  egoism  rather  than  hedonism. 

Psychological  hedonism,  which  was  as  great  an  error  as 
the  ethical  schools  have  ever  committed,  is  far  removed  from* 
its  own  subject,  namely,  man  as  such,  apart  from  any  ra- 
tionalistic consideration.  We  need  not  comment  upon  the 
manifest  unworthiness  of  the  hedonic  ideal,  for  that  would 
be  to  judge  it  in  the  light  of  its  competitor,  Intuitionism ;  we 
need  only  judge  in  accordance  with  its  own  standard,  and 
say  that  it  fails  to  present  the  case  of  man  as  either  human 
or  natural.  An  earth-born  creature  seeks  his  destined  hu- 
manity, and  this  he  will  realize  in  either  a  higher  or  a  lower 
sense.  Naturism  must  feel  that  it  is  cheated  out  of  its  in- 
heritance, when  all  the  activity  of  man  is  made  to  consist 
in  a  pursuit  of  pleasure.  If  man  were  the  hedonic  instead 
of  the  human  animal,  his  life  would  not  reveal  that  central- 
izing intensity,  that  perpetual  search  after  human  realization 
which  has  made  him  what  he  is. 

Having  ruled  British  ethical  thinking  since  the  days  of 
Hobbcs,  psychological  hedonism  is  at  the  end  of  its  reign. 
A  genuine  naturism  must  take  its  place,  and  when  the  stage- 
like  and  preparatory  nature  of  this  view,  which  pervades 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  107 

thinking  as  well  as  living,  is  appreciated,  both  theory  and 
life  will  be  the  gainers.  A  nearer  approach  to  the  heart  of 
humanity  is  found  in  the  voluntaristic  view  of  the  soul.  To 
regard  man  conatively,  as  one  who  instinctively  reacts  upon 
his  experience,  strives  with  nature,  and  aims  at  the  realiza- 
tion of  what  he  is,  is  nearer  the  great  human  truth  than  that 
conception  which  takes  experience  as  it  is  with  the  aim  of 
combining  ideas  and  feelings  in  the  form  of  hedonistic  aims 
and  motives — a  most  unstable  compound  indeed.  By  virtue 
of  its  unified  character,  will  is  strikingly  adapted  to  the  ex- 
pression of  unified  humanity,  and  it  is  the  will-life  which 
makes  man  what  he  is.  With  the  function  of  desire  at  our 
command,  we  need  no  longer  resort  to  a  mechanical  hedonism 
to  account  for  human  progress ;  man's  culture  and  civilization 
result  from  the  spontaneous  activity  of  a  restless  will,  not 
from  the  calculations  of  primitive  utilitarians. 

By  means  of  the  psychology  of  desire,  we  are  able  to 
revise  our  estimate  of  mankind,  so  that  we  are  no  longer 
confronted  by  examples  of  self-enjoyment,  but  by  endless 
instances  of  human  self-realization.  Hedonism,  as  such, 
can  never  account  for  the  totality  of  man's  being  or  for  that 
ceaseless  activity  which  has  fashioned  art  and  formulated 
religious  faith,  and  in  the  presence  of  human  history,  it  is 
absurd  to  prescribe  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest 
number  as  the  maxim  for  mankind.  The  ruling  passion  is 
for  life  as  such,  without  regard  to  its  pleasantness  or  pain- 
fulness.  The  man  of  humanity  looks  upon  pleasure  as 
either  the  concomitant  of  human  energy  or  as  an  extra 
product  contributed  by  nature  in  all  her  resourcefulness. 
So  patent  is  the  life-impulse  that  man  needs  no  promissory 
pleasure  to  urge  him  on,  and  in  the  world  of  naturism  the 
position  of  pleasure  is  only  eccentric.  It  is  desire  which 
constitutes  man,  and  a  critical  view  of  naturistic  ethics  can 
only  regard  him  as  ;he  desiring  animal  to  whose  consciousness 
the  purpose  of  life  gradually  reveals  itself. 


Ill 

THE  NATURISTIC  VIEW  OF  THE  SELF  AND 

HUMANITY 


I — HUMAN  SELFHOOD 

When  the  inner  sense  and  outward  striving  of  humanity 
have  found  their  place  in  the  naturistic  system,  it  becomes 
necessary  to  inquire  to  vi^hat  extent  these  afferent  and  efiFerent 
characteristics  are  individual,  to  what  degree  social  in  their 
application.  Therefore,  when  we  endeavor  to  derive  from 
life  the  values  peculiar  to  humanity,  we  are  brought  face  to 
face  with  the  norms  of  egoism  and  altruism.  Our  belief  is 
that  ethics  aims  at  the  perfection  of  humanity.  Now  arises 
the  question,  whether  this  is  to  be  brought  about  by  the  high- 
est individual  intensity,  or  the  greatest  social  extensity,  which 
amounts  to  inquiring  whether  humanity  is  best  expressed  by 
the  self  or  society.  The  usual  discussion  of  the  problem  as- 
sumes that  altruism  is  right,  needing  only  ethical  corrobora- 
tion, while  egoism  is  wrong,  so  that  we  must  indicate  its 
fallacy.  This  ethical  assumption  carries  with  it  the  psycholo- 
gical presupposition  that  the  self-assertive  tendency  is  so 
strong  that  it  needs  to  be  curbed,  while  social  instincts  are 
so  weak  that  they  deserve  moral  furtherance.  Pure  human- 
ism, however,  does  not  entertain  such  prejudices,  but  leads 
us  to  see  that  genuine  self-realization  may  be  a  motive  alto- 
gether too  weak  in  mankind,  while  the  conformity  of  con- 
vention may  have  become  a  human  habit  too  overp)owering. 
From  this  standpoint  then,  it  seems  as  though  the  claims  of 
the  inner  self  needed  to  be  upheld  in  opposition  to  mere 
conventions  which  may  smother  individuality.  Hence,  our 
argument  concerning  egoism  must  be  an  argument  for  and 
not  against  the  self. 

To  defend  this  kind  of  egoistic  doctrine,  one  must  base 
his  claims  upon  selfhood,  which  in  a  metaphysical  sense  shall 

108 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  109 

be  real,  while,  morally  viewed,  it  is  dignified.  Then  the 
egoistic  argument  will  assume  a  new  form.  The  usual  view 
of  egoism  is  faulty  on  the  metaphysical  side,  inasmuch  as  it 
does  not  secure  any  tenable  idea  of  selfhood.  One  cannot 
uphold  a  doctrine  of  egohood  where  the  view  of  self  is  that 
of  blind  solipsism,  and  the  ego  of  the  traditional  theory  has 
been  nothing  more  than  an  isolated  and  unqualified  "self." 
This  ipsesistic  view  is  to  be  opposed,  not  only  on  grounds 
of  altruism,  but  for  the  sake  of  egoism  itself,  for  no  doctrine 
of  selfhood  can  be  based  upon  the  pure  punctual  ego  who  is 
a  self  in  name  only.  As  an  ideal,  this  private  person  does 
not  represent  humanity  at  all,  but  gives  the  impression  of  a 
solitaire.  Thus  it  comes  about  that  the  common  or  naturis- 
tic notion  of  the  ego  is  to  be  criticised,  not  because  it  is  a 
dangerous  moral  doctrine,  for  such  it  is  not,  but  because  it 
offers  a  misleading  metaphysics. 

In  addition  to  securing  a  more  tenable  view  of  the  self, 
our  ethics  must  further  observe  that  the  conflict  which  the 
ego  in  its  selfhood  is  carrying  on  consists,  not  in  a  conflict 
with  other  egos  who  make  up  solid  society,  but  with  some- 
thing alien  to  its  humanistic  nature,  namely :  the  world.  For 
this  reason,  the  true  egoistic  problem  is  this,  "Shall  I  assert 
myself  in  opposition  to  the  world-whole,  or  shall  I  submit 
to  it?**  This  general  question  concerns  every  ego,  whether 
viewed  individually  or  socially.  Where  altruism  is  ad- 
vanced as  an  argument  it  is  not  because  egoism  is  wrong, 
for  the  refutation  of  egoism  depends  upon  a  view  of  life  far 
more  profound  than  the  metaphysics  of  altruism  will  admit. 
When  we  sum  up  all  the  issues  of  life  for  the  sake  of  find- 
ing out  wherein  our  human  dignity  consists,  we  shall  weigh 
the  ego  with  the  world  to  see  which  has  the  greater  claim 
upon  the  will.  Meanwhile,  it  is  sufficient  to  inquire  how  far 
naturism  can  supply  us  with  a  principle  of  selfhood,  and  since 
nature  is  far  removed  from  spiritual  life,  selfhood  is  prob- 
ably remote  from  self-enjoyment. 

Nevertheless,  when  we  cast  out  self-love,  we  must  not 
cast  out  the  self  with  it,  for  selfhood  is  a  condition  without 
which  humanity  cannot  be  realized.  In  our  altruistic  haste 
to  organize  humanity  according  to  a  social  ideal,  we  over- 
look  the   importance  of  the  ego,  so  that  we   have  as  the 


no  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


natural  result  a  de-indivlduallzed  community  marked  by 
mediocrity.  But  given  the  ego  as  the  starting-point  and 
assuming  the  ego  as  the  goal  of  our  moral  striving,  we  do 
not  find  it  impossible  to  relate  him  to  the  social  order  sur- 
rounding him;  for  the  individual  is  capable  of  a  social  in- 
terpretation, while  with  solidarity  as  the  ideal  the  ego  is 
lost  in  the  mass.  Of  the  two,  the  self  is  a  better  representa- 
tive of  humanity  than  society,  while  the  realization  of  human- 
ity through  activity  depends  upon  the  self-assertion  of  the 
individual  according  to  an  ideal,  rather  than  upon  the  self- 
suppression  of  the  ego  for  altruistic  purposes.  It  is  im- 
possible to  effect  the  logical  subordination  of  the  individual 
to  society,  but  on  the  other  hand,  the  conditions  of  ideal 
humanity  are  satisfied  when  society  is  subsumed  under  the 
individual.  To  the  individual  one  looks  for  content  and 
character,  for  that  inner  life  without  which  humanity  can- 
not come  to  realization  and,  with  all  its  importance  the 
social  element  is  to  be  subordinated  to  the  ideal  of  selfhood. 
To  effect  this  idea  of  introactive  selfhood,  our  ethics 
must  be  careful  to  avoid  the  snares  of  petty  ipsesism,  and  we 
must  bear  in  mind  that  selfhood,  instead  of  being  given  in 
nature,  is  acquired  by  man  within  and  through  himself. 
For  this  reason,  we  shall  have  to  break  with  the  traditional 
conception  of  the  ego  as  formulated  according  to  the  ideal 
of  self-love,  inasmuch  as  the  self-loving  ego  is  not  strong 
enough  to  bear  the  responsibility  of  selfhood.  Neverthe- 
less, nature  puts  into  our  hands  more  perfect  weapons  of 
egoism  than  those  of  sense;  from  her  we  receive  the  prin- 
ciple of  individuation  and  the  power  to  will  the  self.  This 
principle  of  individuation  we  leave  already  discussed;  hence 
it  remains  for  us  to  contrast  the  ideals  of  egoism,  repre- 
sented by  the  expressions,  "Selfhood  in  Sense"  and  '*The 
Will  to  Selfhood." 

I — SELFHOOD   IN    SENSE 

The  problem  of  inner  selfhood  is  not  clearly  presented 
upon  the  hedonic  basis,  for  just  as  the  "hedonic  calculus" 
fails  to  unite  the  given  feelings  of  pleasure,  so  it  is  equally 
unsatisfactory  in  revealing  a  genuine  ego  in  and  behind  the 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  in 


pleasurable  impressions.  Hedonic  egoism,  however,  may  be 
expressed,  not  only  as  the  tendency  to  group  pleasures  into 
a  sum  of  happiness,  but  to  organize  desires  for  the  sake  of 
self-gratification.  This  more  activistic  view  of  the  self 
comes  nearer  the  goal  of  egoism,  for  the  ego  is  more  like 
itself  in  exercising  personal  energies  than  it  is  in  receiving 
impressions  as  they  come  from  the  external  order  of  things. 
In  his  desires,  man  begins  to  be  himself,  and  when  a  system 
like  Buddhism  warns  its  disciple  that  the  attainment  of 
Nirvana  depends  upon  the  removal  of  desire,  we  begin  to 
realize  the  importance  of  this  element  in  the  ideal  of  self- 
realization.  The  desire  for  selfhood  thus  seems  to  possess 
metaphysical  significance,  and  our  intimation  of  an  inner  life 
seems  to  come,  as  it  were  hedonically,  from  the  demand 
which  desire  makes  upon  the  world  of  persons  as  also  upon 
the  world  of  things. 

Apart  from  this  immediate  form  of  self-assertion,  there 
seems  to  be  no  path  to  selfhood  and  inner  humanity,  so  that 
we  must  realize  the  ethical  value  of  a  tendency  on  the  part 
of  the  ego  to  assert  itself  in  its  desires.  These  desires  arc 
personal  so  that  the  *T'  includes  the  **mine",  and  while  the 
tendency  is  as  yet  selfish  it  is  none  the  less  selflike,  deserving 
some  degree  of  commendation.  An  ethical  system  based 
upon  the  ego  is  as  great  a  problem  as  a  metaphysical  one  based 
upon  the  self;  both  represent  necessary  tendencies  in  practi- 
cal and  speculative  philosophy,  while  both  must  be  defended 
against  their  own  solipsism. 

Egoism  is  a  doctrine  so  profound  that  hedonism  seems 
incapable  of  realizing  it.  Were  we  left  to  the  rigoristic 
view  of  life,  the  ego  would  never  appear,  inasmuch  as  all  the 
ideals  of  the  rationalistic  view  arc  impersonal  just  as  they 
tend  to  destroy  the  self.  Our  hope  of  selfhood  seems  to  lie 
in  the  hands  of  the  naturistic  thinker,  and  wc  must  exercise 
care  when  we  observe  the  elements  which  he  contributes  to 
the  individualistic  ideal.  Selfhood  should  be  a  duty  and  as 
such  the  rigorist  should  advance  it;  thus  far  it  has  been  re- 
garded as  a  privilege  granted  by  nature  and  not  wholly 
opposed  by  society.  But  do  hedonic  privileges  afford  any- 
thing more  than  immediate  self-realization  which  docs  net 
reach  the  recesses  of  selfhood  ?     Can  man  find  his  self  in  his 


112  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


feelings?  Doubtful  as  the  hedonic  egoism  may  be,  the  fact 
remains  that,  in  our  modern  ethics,  the  hedonist  has  been  the 
one  to  play  the  part  of  the  egoist,  although  there  is  no  real 
reason  why  the  rigorist  could  not  have  sufficient  "reasonable 
self-love"  of  the  Butlerian  type  to  assert  his  duty  as  his 
own.  But  the  weight  of  duty  was  so  oppressive  that  the 
ego  could  scarcely  breathe  under  it,  hence  it  is  not  the 
rigorist  who  finds  the  self,  although  the  uncompromising 
"Brand"  is  as  much  of  a  superman  as  the  sensuous  "Peer 
Gynt."  Hedonism  reveals  the  desirability  of  selfhood, 
while  the  rigoristic  view  so  depresses  man  that  he  despairs 
of  himself. 

Yet  the  perfection  of  egohood  is  more  than  naturism  can 
accomplish.  Self-love  is  a  tendency  far  removed  from  the 
essential  nature  of  self-assertion;  it  gives  selfishness  with- 
out a  self  and  does  not  show  the  individual  how  he  may  dis- 
tinguish himself  from  the  mass  wherein  self-love  is  the 
common  tendency.  Private  happiness  in  distinction  hom 
public  benefit  is  another  indication  of  this  blind  attempt  to 
realize  inner  selfhood.  Hedonism  cannot  tell  what  it  means 
to  be  one's  self,  for  by  means  of  self-enjoyment  one  shuts 
his  soul  up  within  the  self,  while  he  fails  to  withdraw  it 
from  the  solidarity  of  the  social  order.  Selfhood  in  sense 
is  thus  a  dubious  product  which  we  can  hardly  accept  as  a 
substitute  for  the  individualistic  ideal,  and  while  the  sense- 
life  of  man  admits  of  individuation,  it  docs  not  show  how 
this  ego  is  to  receive  content  and  character.  On  the  prac- 
tical side,  self-love  is  so  shallow  that  it  cannot  really  float 
the  soul-self  in  which  the  true  egoist  rejoices.  Caesar, 
Michel  Angelo,  and  Bonaparte  can  hardly  be  accounted  for 
upon  the  basis  of  the  hedonic  summation  of  pleasures  in  its 
form  of  self-love,  and  the  vigorous  individual  everywhere 
seeks  something  more  thrilling  than  this  Bohemian  notion  of 
self-enjoyment. 

The  need  of  the  egoistic  theory  is  to  be  found  in  a  more 
radical  idea  of  the  ego  who  is  of  more  importance  than  either 
egoist  or  altruist  realizes.  Hobbes  looked  upon  egoism  as 
something  inevitable  and  proceeded  to  work  out  his  theory  of 
social  life  upon  the  basis  of  compact,  in  which  in  spite  of 
apparent  altruism  the  ego  is  interested  in  himself  alone.     His 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  113 

inner  consciousness  of  compassion  is  none  the  less  a  form  of 
self-commiseration  forbidding  all  truly  altruistic  interpreta- 
tion (cf.  Human  Nature  Ch.  iv  10.)  Butler's  defence  of  the 
ego  is  startling.  "If  it  be  said,"  he  urges,  "that  there  are 
persons  in  the  world  who  are  without  natural  affection 
toward  their  fellow-creatures,  there  are  likewise  instances 
of  persons  without  the  common  natural  affection  to  them- 
selves. .  .  .  Men  as  often  contradict  that  part  of  their 
nature  which  respects  self  as  they  contradict  that  part  of  it 
which  respects  society."  (Sermons,  i).  On  this  ground 
of  the  lack  of  egoism,  he  contends  for  "cool"  or  "reasonable'* 
self-love.  Butler's  plea  for  the  self  was  a  religious  one,  and 
just  as  Hobbes  had  shown  how  man  ever  has  an  eye  to  his 
social  safety,  Butler  bases  his  egoism  on  the  theological  tend- 
ency to  look  out  for  the  salvation  of  one's  own  soul. 

Schopenhauer's  treatment  of  the  ego,  when  added  to  the 
political  and  theological  views  already  noted,  shows  how  deep- 
seated  is  the  self-instinct.  Schopenhauer's  voluntaristic 
idealism  treats  the  punctual  ego  as  an  illusion.  Owing  to 
the  principle  of  individuation,  the  one  will-to-live  appears 
phenomenally  in  the  manifold  of  egos,  who  are  separated 
from  one  another  by  time  and  space.  As  each  one  represents 
the  whole  world  to  his  own  mind,  so  he  desires  the  whole 
world  for  himself,  whence  arises  the  solipsistic  illusion  lead- 
ing the  ego  to  consider  the  world  as  his  world.  Hence  the 
individual  is  "ready  to  annihilate  the  world  in  order  simply 
to  preserve  his  own  self,  this  drop  in  the  ocean,  a  bit  longer." 
(fVelt  als  Wille  u,  Fors.  §  61).  This  egoistic  world-desire 
carries  with  it  the  further  illusion  of  the  ego  as  world- 
ground,  whereby  "every  one  looks  upon  his  own  death  as 
the  end  of  the  world,  while  he  accepts  the  death  of  an  ac- 
quaintance as  a  rather  unimportant  matter."  (lb.)  These 
views  of  the  self  tend  further  to  convince  us  that  egoism  real- 
ly involves  more  than  a  sense  of  private  happiness,  while  the 
affair  of  being  one's  self  consists  in  a  real  life-conquest 
marked  by  something  more  than  felicitous  experiences. 

Selfhood  is  an  achievement,  and  few  there  be  who  suc- 
ceed in  attaining  to  individuality.  The  typical  hedonic 
egoist  is  ably  caricatured  by  Ibsen  in  "Peer  Gynt,"  just  as 
Brand  had  realized  the  ideal  of  a  moralistic  ego.     The  watch- 


114  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


word  of  the  Gyntish  ego  is,  **Man,  be  thyself,"  but  the  en- 
deavor to  erect  selfhood  upon  the  basis  of  sense  ends  in  fatal 
self-sufficiency  rather  than  self-affirmation.  Peer  Gynt  is 
thus  no  better  than  a  naturistic  "hill-troll"  who  is  ever 
illusioned  by  his  sense  of  self-sufficiency,  for  where  anwng 
men  they  say,  "Man,  be  thyself,"  among  the  hill-trolls  it  is 
said,  "Troll,  to  thyself  be  enough.'*  (Act  ii  Sc.  vi.) 
This  illusion  of  self-sufficiency  deceives  the  hero  into 
elaborating  the  "Gyntish  Self"  as  "Human  Life's  Emperor" 
(Act  iv  Sc.  ix),  so  that  his  condition  is  not  wholly  unlike 
that  of  the  Cairo  maniac  shut  up,  as  it  were,  in  the  "Barrel 
of  Self."  (Act  IV  Sc.  III).  The  pleasure-loving  and 
world-roving  hero  thus  fails  to  develop  selfhood  except  as 
the  negative  of  a  personal  portrait,  and  containing  but  the 
raw  material  of  personality  he  is  fit  only  to  be  recast  in  the 
ladle  of  the  Button  Moulder.  (Act  v  Sc.  vii).  The  ego 
of  sense  can  never  assume  a  heroic  form,  indeed,  he  is  not 
even  dangerous,  but  there  is  another  way  of  securing  self- 
hood according  to  which  one  seeks  to  obey  Nietzsche's  in- 
junction, "Be  hard."  The  rigorous  Superman  thus  steels  his 
forehead  against  compunction  and  compassion ;  he  approaches 
selfhood  through  the  will. 

2 — THE  WILL  TO  SELFHOOD 


In  the  self,  humanity  shows  its  ability  to  transcend  the 
natural  order  where  individuality  is  unknown,  except  as  a 
formal  principle  of  individuation.  But  the  self  is  not  to  be 
had  for  the  asking  and,  as  we  have  seen,  the  attempt  to  erect 
selfhood  upon  the  basis  of  sense  is  a  failure,  inasmuch  as 
human  emotions  are  not  sufficiently  rigid  to  overcome  the 
downward  influence  of  nature  and  solidarity.  For  this 
reason,  the  egoist  appeals  to  the  will  hoping  to  find  in  self- 
willing  the  rigidity  necessary  to  overcome  the  gravity  of 
mere  existence.  This  phase  of  egoism  is  only  suggested  by 
the  softer  form  of  self-gratification,  so  that  in  measuring  our 
current  egoism  it  were  well  to  ignore  the  older  type  of  self- 
hood in  sense  for  the  sake  of  the  more  advanced  doctrine  of 
the  will  to  selfhood.  Just  as  the  sweet  sensation  and  the 
pleasurable  feeling  represent  exaggerated  forms  ot  conscious 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  115 

interest,  so  self-love  assumes  a  prominence  far  beyond  its 
ability  to  justify,  and  for  the  sake  of  individualism  one  must 
seek  to  discover  a  more  tenable  view  of  the  self. 

The  injunction,  "Be  hard!"  reacts  upon  both  hedonism 
and  intuitionism,  for  as  we  shall  see,  the  hedonic  view  of 
life  elaborates  an  ideal  of  benevolence  while  the  intuitional 
view  opposes  the  ego  by  means  of  conscience.  It  is  on  this 
account  that  the  voluntaristic  ego  must  fortify  himself  against 
both  compassion  and  compunction,  for  these  sentiments  unite 
in  a  sense  of  sympathy  destructive  of  all  self-assertion.  The 
ego  may  not  be  able  to  assert  himself  to  the  end,  but  in  the 
struggle  for  selfhood,  he  must  be  ready  to  abandon  the 
Garden  of  Epicurus  and  engage  in  an  egoistic  enterprise 
more  ambitious.  The  historic  egoists  are  not  slaves  to  self- 
love  but  masters  of  power,  and  their  will  is  not  the  will  to 
enjoy  but  the  will  to  create.  Only  such  a  voluntaristic  view 
can  account  for  Alexander,  Caesar  and  Napoleon  in  politics, 
or  Phidias,  Angelo  and  Beethoven  in  art.  Pleasure  never 
creates  personality  and  no  amount  of  self -enjoyment  can  pro- 
duce self-assertion. 

The  emptiness  of  egoism  as  ordinarily  understood  is  one 
with  the  shallowness  of  hedonism,  and  even  when  one  is  not 
pledged  to  the  ideal  he  must  avoid  the  snare  set  by  a  tradi- 
tional form  of  philosophy  making  life  to  consist  of  a  sum  of 
pleasurable  feelings  of  which  "self"  is  the  shining  center. 
Such  schemes  as  those  of  pure  hedonism  and  pure  egoism  are 
sure  indications  that  the  essence  of  life  is  not  contained  in 
immediacy,  or  its  realization  in  the  yielding  nature  of  feeling. 
Even  in  his  purely  natural  capacity  as  a  creature  living  in 
independence  of  ideals  and  duties,  man  has  some  sense  of  the 
integral  character  of  his  being,  so  that  he  must  settle  with 
his  striving  nature  by  adapting  a  harder  view  of  life  and  the 
self.  The  hedonic  solitaire  is  too  cavalier-like  and  being 
devoid  of  personality  he  is  without  prominence  in  the  world 
of  persons.  Such  a  naturistic  solitaire  presents  a  problem 
needing  more  sufficient  statement  rather  than  solution,  while 
the  ego  is  to  be  revised  rather  than  repudiated.  The  "self" 
of  sense  is  no  ethical  factor  whether  for  good  or  bad,  and  in 
order  to  come  abreast  of  the  egoistic  problem,  our  thought 
must  advance  beyond  the  idea  of  the  British  ego  who  loves 


ii6  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

himself  to  the  Continental  type  of  individual  who  wills  him- 
self. 1       i_      r  u 
The  genuine  problem  of  selfhood  reveals  the  fact  that 

the  creature  of  "self-love"  is  but  a  sub-ego,  or  individuating 
consciousness  which  has  come  up  from  nature  without  feel- 
ing the  internal  effects  of  civilization  and  culture;  for  this 
rudimentary  ego,  Hobbes  and  English  ethics  up  to  Sidgwick 
is  responsible.  If  the  ego  does  exist  psychologically,  he  is 
not  worthy  of  ethical  consideration,  for  he  is  a  source  of  no 
moral  difficulty.  Hedonic  egoism  has  taken  the  ego  for 
granted,  while  altruism  has  feared  that,  let  alone,  he  would 
immediately  fall  into  selfhood.  But  selfhood  does  not  exist 
as  something  given,  and  still  less  is  it  a  fixed  condition  into 
which  the  soul  may  fall;  hence  hedonism  assumes  too  much 
and  proves  too  little  in  the  way  of  individualism.  To  be 
himself,  man  must  will  himself.  Selfhood  is  an  inward 
creation,  not  an  outward  fact;  it  must  be  achieved,  not 
simply  accepted.  Left  alone,  the  ego  merely  drifts  with  the 
natural  stream  of  tendency,  his  nature  becoming  soft  and 
impersonal  instead  of  being  edged  with  individualism.  To 
achieve  selfhood,  the  ego  must  make  the  ego  an  object,  and 
instead  of  accepting  selfhood  as  a  matter  of  necessity,  as 
Hobbes  suggested,  the  ego  must  follow  the  freedom  of  the 
Fichtean  Ich  which  posits  itself. 

The  elaboration  of  selfhood  in  will  was  the  work  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  was  not  independent  of  Napoleon. 
From  Stendhal,  Nietzsche  seems  to  have  learned  of  the 
Superman,  but  Stendhal  who  served  under  Bonaparte,  could 
advance  only  the  ideal  of  a  vicious  hero,  like  Julian  Sorel  in 
"Red  and  Black."  Stirner's  Einzige  was  calculated  to  live 
without  beliefs  and  ideals,  but  was  he  anything  more  than 
the  solitaire  of  sense?  Ibsen's  company  of  egos  know  only 
one  law,  "Be  thyself!"  Brand  attempts  it  in  the  realm  of 
spirit.  Peer  Gynt  in  the  world  of  sense,  while  Emperor 
Julian  seeks  to  will  himself.  Nora,  who  had  been  anti- 
cipated by  Villier's  Elizabeth  in  "The  Revolt,"  asserts  her- 
self in  defiance  of  the  social  order,  while  Hilda  urges  "The 
Master  Builder"  to  seek  selfhood  by  scaling  the  tower  he 
has  built.  The  hesitancy  of  Ibsen  is  matched  by  the  in- 
herent weakness  of  Nietzsche  and  Wagner  who  create  types 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  117 

strikingly  contrasted  with  their  own  natures;  while  Niet- 
zsche's Superman  is  above  all  sympathy,  Wagner's  Siegfried 
is  beyond  fear,  and  yet  it  is  only  by  vehement  assertions  on 
the  part  of  their  respective  authors  that  they  are  enabled  to 
secure  their  selfhood.  Sudermann  has  added  several  signifi- 
cant portraits  to  the  gallery  of  egoists,  and  while  the  influence 
of  Ibsen,  Wagner  and  Nietzsche  is  not  wanting  they  bear  the 
original  stamp  of  selfhood.  Paul,  in  "Dame  Care,"  reveals 
the  want  of  a  self -asserting  soul;  Regina,  in  "The  Cat's 
Bridge,"  preserves  her  savage  selfhood  untainted  by  any 
social  or  ethical  hindrances;  Beata,  in  the  "Joy  of  Living," 
cares  naught  for  the  "conscience  of  the  race,"  for  she  has 
her  own  individuality.  In  these  examples  of  feminism  and 
egoism  one  observes  the  striving  towards  aesthetic  personal- 
ity, and  the  only  pity  is  that  the  ego-movement  involves  so 
much  of  the  abnormal  as  to  suggest  megalomania.  Russian 
and  French  writers,  like  Turgenief?  and  Maurice  Barres 
advance  their  egoism  more  humbly.  Meanwhile  no  one 
shows  us  the  degree  with  which  egoism  is  compatible  with 
socialism. 

The  chief  view  of  this  secondary  form  of  selfhood  is  that 
it  repudiates  the  soft  ego  of  sense  by  showing  how  the  in- 
dividual must  strive  and  suffer  in  the  achievement  of  self- 
hood. Egoism  is  not  too  strong  but  too  weak,  as  both  But- 
ler and  Ibsen  point  out,  hence  the  first  work  to  be  per- 
formed by  the  ego  is  a  self-centred  one.  Voluntaristic 
egoism  changes  the  character  of  the  problem  from  a  petty 
quarrel  between  egoist  and  altruist  to  a  vast  conflict  between 
the  individual  and  the  world,  and  henceforth  the  ethical 
subject  is  not  to  ask,  "Shall  I  love  my  self  f**  but,  "Shall  I  be 
myself  f'  The  opponent  of  the  ego  is  not  another  ego  or  a 
world  full  of  these,  but  the  world  itself.  To  adapt  one's 
self  to  the  world,  whether  in  opposing  it  or  in  submitting  to 
it,  on«:  must  become  an  individual.  We  do  not  claim  that 
the  end  of  life  consists  in  individuality,  or  that  the  highest 
form  of  reality  is  to  be  found  in  selfhood;  but  we  do  insist 
that  whatever  is  to  be  done  must  be  done  through  the  in- 
dividual, and  if  the  highest  form  of  life  consists  in  renunda- 
tion  it  is  the  renunciation  of  the  self  by  the  self.  Only  as 
the  ego  wills  his  being,  can  he  will  his  not-being. 


ii8  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

2 — HUMAN     WORLDHOOD 

Where    hedonic    egoism    fails   to    make    any    substantial 
progress  toward  human  selfhood,  the  burden  of  correction 
which  altruism  assumes  is  not  likely  to  weigh  heavily  in  a 
philosophy  of  life  which  is  pledged  to  the  totality  of  things. 
If  egoism  is  not  bad  enough  to  be  wrong,  altruism  is  not  good 
enough  to  be  right,  and  if  self-love  is  so  superficial,  the  love 
of  others  by  that  self  will  be  of  no  great  moral  moment. 
Nevertheless,  if  we  penetrate  beneath  the  surface,  we  may 
find  in  this  controversy  the  source  of  a  more  important  dis- 
tinction than  that  of  egoism  and  altruism;  it  is  the  conflict 
between   the   naturistic  and  characteristic   forms  of  human 
life.     Before    this   service   can    be    appreciated,    it   must    be 
shown  how  nearly  hedonic  altruism  approaches  the  borders 
of   human   worldhood.     The   progress  of   democratic   ideals 
and  social  sentiments  has  made  altruism  so  forcible  that  the 
need  of  ethical  thought  to-day  is  felt  upon  the  egoistic  side 
which  stands  in  need  of  defense;  and  one  of  the  problems 
which  our  ethics  must  assume  is  the  defense  of  self-realiza- 
tion as  a  condition  without  which  humanity  can  never  reach 
its  goal.     Where  egoism  has  been  thwarted  by  altruism,  it 
must  now  be  defended  against  an  adversary  no  more  worthy. 
The  true  ethical  contrast  is  not  that  of  self  and  society,  but 
of  one's  own  selfhood  and  worldhood. 


a — THE    UTILITARIAN    ADJUSTMENT 

Hedonic  altruism  differs  from  hedonic  egoism  in  degree, 
but  not  in  kind.  Both  are  forms  of  a  common  quantita- 
tive hedonism  which,  as  in  Bentham's  system,  simply  adds 
extent  to  the  other  attributes  of  feeling.  Altruism  thus  ex- 
pands pleasure  upon  the  social  plane,  but  does  not  change 
the  ego  into  a  multiple  personality.  With  utilitarianism, 
altruism  assumes  the  form  of  a  proof ;  with  social  evolution 
it  is  a  premise.  The  utilitarian  school  has  exhibited  mar- 
velous zeal  in  the  defeat  of  egoism  and  the  defense  of 
altruism,  and  has  spared  no  pains  in  making  claims  for  and 
admissions  against  its  ideal  to  reduce  it  to  cogency.  But,  in 
both  individual  and  race,  the  endeavor  to  sum  up  feelings  to 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  119 

produce  a  general  happiness  seems  forever  hopeless.  If  the 
hedonic  calculus  fails  to  evoke  the  greatest  happiness  in  the 
individual,  the  utilitarian  plan  seems  doomed  to  fail  when 
it  seeks  to  demonstrate  the  "greatest  happiness  of  the  great- 
est number,"  an  expression  used  by  Hutcheson  in  1725 
(Inquiry,  Sec.  ill  §  viii).  Where  the  system  cannot  find 
the  happiness  of  the  ego  in  his  isolation,  it  is  not  likely  to 
succeed  when  dealing  with  a  plurality  of  similar  egos,  whose 
hedonism  is  their  only  humanity  and  who  have  no  sense  of 
personality  except  that  which  is  given  in  immediate  pleasure. 

Mill's  conflict  with  egoism,  as  also  his  defeat  at  the 
hands  of  his  adversary,  have  passed  into  history  and  need  be 
reviewed  only  for  the  sake  of  showing  how  impossible  is 
the  solution  of  the  life-problem  upon  a  basis  purely  hedonis- 
tic. The  language  of  the  monograph  on  "Utilitarianism" 
is  unmistakable.  "No  reason  can  be  given  why  the  general 
happiness  is  desirable,  except  that  each  person  desires  his 
own  happiness.  This,  however,  being  a  fact,  we  have  not 
only  all  the  proof  which  the  case  admits  of,  but  all  which  it 
is  possible  to  require,  that  happiness  is  a  good;  that  each 
person's  happiness  is  a  good  to  that  person,  and  the  general 
happiness,  therefore,  a  good  to  the  aggregate  of  all  persons." 
This  is  not  only  a  mechanical  summation  of  which  humanity 
is  incapable,  but  an  example  of  the  well-recognized  fallacy 
of  composition,  which  a  logician  like  Mill  could  easily  have 
recognized.  And  in  the  midst  of  this,  the  ego  in  his  self-love 
is  not  affected,  his  selfishness  not  corrected;  indeed,  he  might 
argue  "The  more  pleasure  I  acquire,  so  much  more  will 
there  be  to  contribute  toward  the  general  fund."  Even 
Hobbes  believed  in  a  restricted  egoism  for  the  sake  of  social 
compactness,  but  Mill's  scheme  allows  full  freedom  to  the 
individual,  and  instead  of  advancing  toward  solidarity,  his 
utilitarianism  retreats  from  it. 

The  exaggerated  claims  of  this  older  doctrine  of  univer- 
sal happiness  are  supplemented  by  a  rationalistic  form  of 
hedonism,  which  seeks  to  increase  the  cogency  of  its  proof 
by  reducing  the  claims  of  its  premises.  Sidgwick  rational- 
izes benevolence  and  abandons  the  hope  of  proving  its  valid- 
ity, according  to  the  inductive  method  of  Mill.  Benevo- 
lence,  like   justice  and   prudence,   assumes  the   form  of   an 


I20  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

ideal  entertained  rather  than  a  rule  to  be  followed  empirical- 
ly, and  Sidgwick,  as  he  turns  away  from  Mill's  "proof,"  is 
guilty  of  his  own  inconsistency,  for  he  looks  upon  benevolence 
as  an  "intuition."  He  expresses  himself  by  saying,  "There 
being  no  actual  desire  for  the  general  happiness,  the  proposi- 
tion that  general  happiness  is  desirable  cannot  be  in  this 
way  established :  so  that  there  is  a  gap  in  the  expressed  argu- 
ment which  can  only  be  filled  in  by  some  such  proposition 
as  the  intuition  of  Rational  Benevolence*'  (Methods  of 
Ethics,  Bk.  III.  Ch.  xiii).  Thus  was  the  rational  utili- 
tarian driven  from  his  own  school  by  the  specter  of  hedonic 
egoism.  Like  Mill,  Sidgwick  greatly  overestimated  the  im- 
portance of  hedonistic  self-love  in  the  statement  of  the 
problem,  and  underestimated  the  influence  of  sympathy  in 
the  solution.  Crude  hedonism,  which  has  never  deduced  the 
principle  of  selfhood,  presents  a  half-hearted  egoism  which 
is  balanced  by  the  sympathetic  element  in  human  nature. 

How  absurd  is  the  spectacle  of  these  serious  utilitarians 
fleeing  from  such  a  half-real  enemy  as  egoism !  Both  warn 
their  readers  and  their  critics  against  that  superficiality 
which  takes  mere  impression  for  intuition,  but  do  they  escape 
from  this  very  snare?  Mill  recommends  "practiciscd  self- 
consciousness,"  but  such  does  not  save  him  from  fallacious 
reasoning;  Sidgwick  is  keen  enough  to  shut  out  nearly  all 
intuitions  save  that  of  benevolence,  but  fails  to  discover  the 
common  root  of  sympathy  in  mankind.  The  perception  of 
this  would  have  spared  his  academic  pride,  which  must  have 
been  wounded  by  the  adoption  of  such  an  alien  principle  as 
the  "intuition  of  benevolence."  Why  struggle  to  prove  al- 
truism? Why  assume  that  the  love  of  self  is  self-evident? 
To  realize  how  thoroughly  man  is  pervaded  by  sociability, 
how  hemmed  in  he  is  by  an  out-lying  humanity,  would  be  to 
save  utilitarianism  from  the  stigmata  of  false  logic  and  bad 
psychology.  Man  is  human,  hence  he  is  social:  man  is  also 
individual,  hence  he  cannot  flee  from  his  egoistic  shadow. 
Neither  element  is  to  be  eliminated,  but  both  are  to  be  ad- 
justed to  an  order  of  being  in  which  they  may  participate. 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  121 

b— THE  SOCIAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  CONDUCT 

The  evolutionary  view  of  life  sinks  one  degree  deeper 
into  the  phenomenal,  and  thus  reveals  a  third  stage  in  the 
progress  of  hedonism,  which,  having  passed  through  the 
pleasurable  and  the  utilitarian,  now  takes  refuge  in  the  ideal 
of  preservation.  Apart  from  any  particular  point  which 
this  theory  may  prove,  it  must  commend  itself  to  him  who 
would  have  mankind  surveyed  in  systematic  fashion;  and 
while  we  need  express  no  undue  faith  in  a  scheme  of  pheno- 
menological  import  only,  we  can  only  be  refreshed  by  observ- 
ing how  the  totality  of  human  life,  reflected  by  hedonist  and 
utilitarian,  is  now  recognized.  The  theory  cannot  conceal 
the  belief  that  the  secret  of  nature,  as  an  evolving  order  of 
phenomena,  contains  the  key  to  the  problem  of  humanity 
which  is  supposed  to  continue  this  development.  In  carrying 
out  this  idea,  Spencer  expands  the  concept  of  conduct  from 
alert  conscious  choosing  on  the  part  of  man,  to  "the  aggre- 
gate of  the  inter-dependent  acts  of  the  organism."  (Data 
of  Ethics,  §2.) 

Evolutionary  ethics  manifests  a  plan  wholly  unknown  in 
the  realm  of  hedonic  utilitarianism ;  as  a  result  of  this,  ethics 
becomes  constructive,  not  merely  critical,  and  morality  is 
made,  not  ideal  only,  but  real.  Spencer  effects  this  in  a 
conscious,  deliberate  fashion  when,  after  having  criticised 
other  systems  because  they  ignored  the  "causal  connections" 
of  conduct  (lb.  §  22  a),  he  develops  characteristic  views  of 
the  subject— physical,  biological,  psychological,  sociological. 
Such  are  the  stages  of  conduct  from  the  physical  to  the 
political.  The  result  is  system,  naturistic  system;  but  it  is 
only  after  urging  the  idea  of  conduct  to  extremes  that  the 
synthetic  philosopher  may  accomplish  his  result.  Particularly 
in  the  "physical  view  of  conduct,"  which  finds  its  beginnings 
in  most  rudimentary  forms  of  life,  does  this  doubtful  exten- 
sion of  the  concept  appear;  nor  is  it  absent  from  the 
psychological  view,"  which  marks  the  development  from 
mere  life-feeling,  on  the  part  of  the  organism,  to  re-repre- 
sentative feelings,  appreciated  by  the  human  subject  in  his 
relations  with  society.  Even  a  glance  at  the  system  will 
suggest  that  such  terms  as   "conduct,"   "life,"   "goodness," 


122  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


etc.,  must  be  revised  to  adapt  themselves  to  the  particular 
system  of  naturistic  evolution.  In  itself,  it  constitutes  a 
forceful  statement  of  the  claims  inherent  in  the  social  world- 
order,  and  instead  of  being  a  mere  check  to  egoism  or  a 
proof  of  altruism,  it  represents  the  whole  human  system,  of 
which,  however,  it  gives  but  the  shell. 

The  organic  view  of  conduct  which  presides  over 
Spencer's  discussion  shows  how  far  removed  from  any  claim 
to  immediate  happiness  is  the  system  of  evolutionary  ethics. 
With  Stephen,  this  same  largesse  appears,  but  in  the  form 
of  a  philosophic  argument  which  the  school  would  hardly 
care  to  meet.  Stephen  places  the  organic  concept  of  society 
in  a  philosophic  recess  which  he  had  previously  created  by 
means  of  a  positivistic  criticism,  which  strives  to  rid  itself  of 
all  philosophical  implications  by  a  "postponement  of  meta- 
physical problems."  (Sci.  of  Eth.  Ch.  i.  §  i.)  As  scientic 
geometry  proceeds  confidently  without  discovering  the  ulti- 
mate nature  of  spatiality,  and  as  physics  elaborates  the  laws 
of  nature  without  deciding  concerning  the  ultimate  nature  of 
reality,  so  may  ethics  discuss  the  science  of  conduct  without 
settling  the  question  of  the  ultimate  nature  of  morality.  This 
"postponement/'  however,  is  not  observed  for  any  great 
length  of  time,  but  only  till  the  advocate  of  a  naturistic  sys- 
tem has  had  time  to  eliminate  ontological  views  which  do  not 
command  his  assent. 

In  a  more  or  less  perfect  way,  naturism,  as  a  system  of 
mankind,  and  not  a  mere  principle  of  insight,  assumes  shape 
in  Stephen's  theory.  The  boldness  of  it  reminds  one  of 
Plato's  construction  of  the  ideal  State,  while  its  blindness  to 
the  implicit  opposition  of  experience  resembles  the  scholastic 
realism  which  elaborated  the  ideal  of  a  Catholic  Church. 
Spencer's  ontological  realism  is  consecrated  to  the  notion  of  a 
"social  organism."  In  advancing  the  claims  of  this  concept, 
Stephen  criticised  the  utilitarian  school  because  it  had  treated 
society  as  an  "aggregate"  rather  than  an  "organism."  This 
latter  expression  is  used  deliberately  and  repeatedly  as  the 
basis  for  indicating  the  fundamental  principle  whence  all 
moral  relations  are  derived.  Every  individual  being  is  but  a 
part  of  a  system,  which  itself  relates  to  another  system,  and 
so  on  indefinitely;  while  the  connection  with  the  enveloping 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  123 

realm  is  made  known  to  the  constituents  by  means  of  a 
special  consciousness,  or  "corporate  feeling."  Thus  is  the 
church  spoken  of  as  "she"  while  a  corporation  is  said  to 
possess  a  "soul."  (Sci.  of  Eth.  Ch.  iii,  §  iv).  The  social 
organism  is  made  up  of  "social  tissue,"  and  as  physiological 
tissue  is  made  up  of  cells,  so  social  tissue  is  made  up  of  men. 
This  organic  conception  of  society  subtends  the  moral  order 
m  such  a  way  that  the  supreme  ethical  commandment 
changes  from  a  "Do  this"  to  a  "Be  this"  (Sci.  of  Eth.  Ch. 
IV.,  §  16),  while  the  criterion  of  goodness  changes  from 
happiness  to  health,  by  virtue  of  which  there  arises  in  place 
of  "instantaneous  morality"  another  of  a  tendential  nature 
(lb.  Ch.  IX ).  Conduct,  which  even  Spencer  looks  upon 
collectively  as  the  aggregate  of  the  interdependent  acts  of 
the  organism,  becomes  more  thoroughly  functional  in  its 
application  to  the  social  organism. 

In  this  vaporous  atmosphere  of  social  evolution,  which 
contrasts  so  strikingly  with  the  airless  scheme  of  utilitarian- 
ism, it  is  more  difficult  to  distinguish  the  individual  than  it  is 
to  relate  him  to  his  fellow.  As  hedonism,  by  its  emphasis  upon 
instantaneous  pleasure  with  its  accompanying  personal  form, 
was  ever  inclined  toward  egoism,  the  evolutionary  mode, 
which  is  so  surrendered  to  the  species,  exhibits  an  excessively 
altruistic  tendency  that  threatens  to  submerge  the  isolated 
ego.  The  evolutionist  whose  thought  is  centered  upon  life 
and  its  preservation  cannot  afiFord  to  divide  the  field  and  thus 
take  sides  with  either  party.  He  realizes  that  life  must 
have  an  egoistic  form,  and  an  altruistic  content.  Such  a  view 
is  implied  in  Stephen's  conception  of  a  socially  organic 
"tissue"  made  up  of  living  "cells,"  while  Spencer  speaks  more 
intimately  of  the  ego  and  society  (cf.  Data  of  Ethics,  Chs. 
XI,  XII ).  Society  needs  the  self,  as  the  self  needs  society, 
and  the  most  acceptable  view  of  their  intersection  consists 
in  their  common  participation  in  the  one  and  impersonal 
system  of  social  order. 

As  Spencer  significantly  admits  in  his  "conciliation  of 
egoism  and  altruism  (lb.  Ch.  xiv),  this  balance  of  interest 
between  the  two  is  now  being  worked  out  upon  the  basis  of 
a  purely  "relative  ethics"  which,  as  we  should  say,  is  confined 
to   the   phenomenal   order   of  empirical   egos   who   may   be 


124  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

treated  singly  or  socially.  Nevertheless,  with  that  vista  which 
habitually  opens  to  the  gaze  of  the  evolutionist,  he  is  im- 
pressed with  the  promise  of  a  future  form  of  ''absolute  ethics." 
which  finds  the  "ultimate  man"  in  an  atmosphere  untainted 
by  either  egoism  or  altruism  (lb.  Ch.  xv).  The  "concilia- 
tion," therefore,  is  no  solution,  and  the  problem  still  rcmams 
for  those  who  find  the  idealistic  interpretation  of  nature  and 
man,  not  a  hindrance  to  consistent  thinking,  but  a  help  which 
is  ever  available  to  serious  and  consistent  thought.  In  such  a 
spirit,  we  raise  the  question,  what  is  society?  Hedonism  dis- 
cussed it  in  terms  of  the  individual ;  utilitarianism  resolved  it 
into  an  aggregate;  evolutionism  raised  it  to  the  rank  of  an 
organism.  Yet  the  conditions  of  human  conduct  cannot  be 
fully  met  until  a  further  step  is  taken,  and  society  is  regarded 
as  only  the  phenomenal  form  of  the  world  of  humanity. 
Hedonism  cannot  account  for  human  worldhood,  since  it 
neglects  the  perfecting  influence  of  culture  and  docs  not  avail 
itself  of  the  unifying  power  of  human  history.  In  its  his- 
toric form,  it  takes  its  place  with  the  material  system  of 
Tamas  Guna  and  the  somatic  system  of  Platonic  philo- 
sophy ;  its  heroes  are  the  hylical  men  of  Gnosticism  who  have 
not  advanced  beyond  the  age  of  sense  as  indicated  by  Vico  and 
Schiller.  Of  the  hedonists,  Spencer  alone  seems  to  penetrate 
the  heavy  veil  of  naturism;  his  "ultimate  man"  promises  to 
follow  "an  ideal  code  of  conduct  formulating  the  behaviour 
of  the  completely  adapted  men  in  the  completely  evolved 
society"  (Data  of  Eth.  I  104).  All  hedonism  is  half- 
hearted, and  in  slavish  fear  of  the  ideal,  it  clings  to  the 
man  of  nature;  in  so  doing,  it  likewise  fulfills  the  satirical 
counsel  of  the  hyperborean  who  said: 

"Kennel  the  eagle ;— and  let  loose 
On  empyrean  flights  the  goose." 

Q — EGOISM  AND  SOCIALISM 

The  social  organization  of  conduct  only  half  realizes, 
while  utilitarianism  wholly  ignores,  the  sense  of  sympathy 
pervading  humanity.  After  Shaftesbury,  Hume,  and  Smith 
had  corrected  the  egoistic  psychology  of  Hobbes,  it  would 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  125 

seem  as  though  the  utilitarian  benevolence  were  uncalled  for. 
Humanism  is  sympathism  and  the  progress  of  civilization 
more  and  more  shows  how  interdependent  are  the  sons  of 
men,  while  the  advancement  of  culture  discloses  the  common 
world  of  destiny  in  which  these  humans  must  dwell.  There- 
fore all  attempts  to  prove  altruism,  whether  through  reason 
or  by  intuition,  are  as  vain  as  they  are  unnecessary  in  a  warm 
human  world-order  where  selfhood  is  the  exception.  On  the 
social  side  where  this  sympathy  is  taken  for  granted,  the 
result  is  to  create  an  ideal  of  concrete  solidarity,  and  the 
"physical  view"  of  conduct  from  which  Spencer  sets  out  is 
indicative  of  the  mechanical  collectivism  postulated  by  the 
social  aim.  Meanwhile  the  egoism  which  Spencer  carries 
over  into  the  realm  of  absolute  ethics  suggests  that  socialism 
is  not  a  movement  wholly  altruistic,  for  the  incentive  is  a 
selfish  one  prompted  by  the  realization  of  man's  industrial 
servitude.  As  a  result  the  usual  treatise  on  socialism  is  largely 
a  defense  of  egoism,  while  the  advancement  of  an  egoistic 
ideal  involves  socialism.  Does  not  Stirner's  Einzige  like 
Hobbes'  "Leviathian",  assume  the  proportions  of  a  social 
ego? 

From  such  physical  views  of  humanity  we  are  able  to  ac- 
quire at  least  one  significant  notion — the  inevitable  tendency 
on  the  part  of  the  individual  to  live  for  others.  The  common 
view  of  altruism  makes  it  a  virtue  when  it  is  a  necessity  at 
times  grievous,  and  living  for  another  is  not  merely  a  self- 
chosen  course  of  fond  conduct,  but  a  necessary  social  burden. 
Militarism  meant  fighting  for  others  in  the  persons  of  cap- 
tains and  kings ;  industrialism  means  toiling  for  others  called 
merchants  and  financiers;  hence  with  sword  and  spear  it  was 
warfare  for  others  and  with  ploughshare  and  pruning-hook  it 
is  still  a  forced  altruism.  With  feudalism,  African  slavery 
and  industrial  servitude  it  was  nothing  but  living  for  others, 
but  was  it  noble  in  the  performance  or  beautiful  in  the  ap- 
pearance ?  We  know  that  such  physical  altruism  is  ever  con- 
temptible, and  our  only  reason  for  adhering  to  it  in  practice 
and  praising  it  in  idea  is  because  we  feel  it  to  be  unavoidable 
and  fear  the  emancipation  of  the  individual. 

Both  egoism  and  socialism,  which  betray  a  strange  aflSinity 
for  each  other,  declare  that  the  individual  should  not  live 


i 


126  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

for  others,  but  for  himself,  for  while  we  are  busy  furthering 
altruism  we  are  forging  new  chains  of  convention  and  con- 
servatism.    Those  who  have  at  heart   the   interests  of  the 
individual  are  none  the  less  interested  in  the  social  environ- 
ment which  he  is  to  have,  so  that  our  modern  humanistic 
literature,    in    Stirner   and    Nietzsche,   Wagner   and    Ibsen, 
Turgeniefi  and  Tolstoi,  Bernard  Shaw  and  Anatole  France, 
presents  a  poetical  fusion  of  egoism  and  socialism.     These 
tendencies  combine  to  neutralize  the  present  impersonal  sys- 
tem of  life  incident  upon  commercialism.     A  genuine  view 
of  human  life  cannot  afford  to  rest  its  cause  with  the  physical 
and    forced    altruism   of   the    utilitarian   system,    for    when 
mankind  was  destined  to  live  in  the  free  air  of  humanity, 
it  is  sure  to  rebel  against  the  subterranean  life  of  Niebelungen 
dwarfs   however   enchanting   the   music   of   the    forge-mo/i/ 
may  be.     Nevertheless,  the  indiv^idual  cannot  abide  by  his 
mere  egoism,  for  man  is  no  more  fitted  to  be  a  solitaire  than 
he  is  adapted  to  solidarity.     His  ultimate  attitude  toward 
the  world  we  cannot  determine  as  long  as  we  survey  him 
upon  the  purely  naturistic  level,  although  we  are  m  a  posi- 
tion to  affirm  that  the  enlightened  ego,  raised  above  selfhood 
in  sense  or  selfhood  in  will,  can  realize  his  own  inherent 
humanity  only  as  he  entertains  universal  ideas  and  adopts 
universal  aims.     On  the  other  hand,  to  advance  socialism 
without    individualism    is    to    bury    man    alive.      American 
altruism,   represented  by  our  system  of  philanthropy,   is  a 
curious  mixture  of  blind  egoism  and  equally  blind  benevo- 
lence   to    which    we    owe  much    of    our    educational    and 
eleemosynary  work.     But  all  of  this  is  at  the  expense  of  the 
individual  who  finds  it  more  than  difficult  to  realize  himselt 
in  our  modern  system  of  mechanical  living. 

The  social  order  is  not  sufficiently  yielding  tor  the 
individual  who  suffers  for  his  non-conformity  and  uncon- 
ventionality,  and  the  condition  of  things  to-day,  when 
Spencer  offers  the  "conciliation"  of  egoism  and  altruism 
for  the  promotion  of  peace,  is  not  wholly  different  from  that 
of  the  Enlightenment  when  Hobbes  suggested  contract  as 
the  remedy  for  a  state  of  war.  During  the  three  centuries, 
humanity,  or  the  inner  life  of  this  physical  society,  has  not 
been  brought  to  the  light  and  men  are  still  recommended 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  127 

to  adopt  some  external  form  of  social  adjustment.  When 
we  realize  how  humanity  as  a  whole  must  struggle  to  exist 
in  its  conflict  with  nature,  we  are  in  a  condition  where  we 
feel  the  importance  of  the  social  order.  Our  attitude, 
therefore,  assumed  in  behalf  of  the  individual,  is  that  of 
pessimism  and  sympathy  in  an  order  of  being  which  involves 
both  striving  and  suflFering,  and  this  removes  us  forever  from 
the  optimistic  altruism  of  conventional  morality.  In  the 
face  of  the  world-whole  and  under  the  control  of  time,  the 
ego  cannot  live  unto  himself  alone,  although  this  fatal  con- 
dition of  things  on  the  "planet  of  hunger"  is  no  excuse  for 
industrial  altruism,  where  egoism  ignores  the  real  self  while 
society  is  ignorant  of  the  resources  contained  in  spiritual 
humanity. 

Altruria,  could  we  discover  it,  would  be  a  lowland  with 
arid  deserts,  for  the  leveling  effect  of  the  social  ideal  would 
forbid  variation  of  scene  and  mountain  peaks  of  prominence. 
Humanity  is  superior  to  society,  and  the  self-positing  of  hu- 
manity means  more  than  the  ethical  organization  of  an 
altruistic  state.  The  subtle  bond  between  self  and  self  is 
far  different  from  the  rough  chain  of  socialism  and  soli- 
darity. To  recognize  humanity  in  another  person,  the 
sympathetic  individual  must  penetrate  beneath  altruism 
which  reveals  only  the  phenomenal  view  of  the  world  of 
persons.  The  de-individualized  order  of  society  is  not  the 
condition  presented  by  living  humanity  in  either  its  history 
or  acquired  present,  and  the  altruistic  situation  is  wanting 
in  the  prominent  features  of  reality.  Altruism  does  not 
reveal  the  unity  of  human  life,  for  it  innocently  asks  us  to 
participate  in  the  social  order  when  by  our  very  nature  we 
can  do  nothing  else.  The  individual,  when  in  his  indivi- 
duality, has  his  place  in  humanity  so  that  the  primary  need 
of  life,  when  regarded  from  the  social  standpoint,  consists 
in  the  recognition  and  evaluation  of  the  surrounding,  under- 
lying order  of  humanity  as  such. 

The  inherent  claims  of  humanity  are  not  to  be  satisfied 
by  any  system  of  compact  or  through  organized  benevolence. 
We  have  repudiated  the  solitary  ego  who  was  formerly  re- 
garded as  party  to  this  contract,  and  now  we  must  conceive 
of  society  in  such  a  way  that  it  may  make  room  for  the 


128  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

individual  in  his  world  of  selfhood.  At  the  same  time,  a 
truly  social  view  of  mankind  must  recognize  the  fact  that 
humanity  is  not  wholly  detached  from  nature,  but  it  is  so 
under  the  dominion  of  sense  that  its  striving  for  inner 
realization  is  ever  hindered,  and  the  resulting  condition  of 
humanity  is  a  pathetic  one.  In  the  condition  of  "absolute 
ethics,"  one  might  do  away  with  the  social  order  and  with 
self-sacrifice,  but  being  a  spirit  in  a  sensuous  order,  the  con- 
dition of  man  is  relative  indeed.  Upon  this  basis,  our  philo- 
sophy can  postulate  sympathy  as  a  necessary  element  in  an 
order  of  humanity  whose  perfection  is  so  far  from  com- 
plete that  suffering  and  error  are  ever  entering  in.  One 
is  not  called  upon  to  play  the  part  of  an  English  utilitarian 
in  a  political  order  made  by  man,  as  it  were,  but  he  is  ex- 
pected to  assume  the  attitude  of  a  Russian  sympathist  in 
the  consciounsess  that  humanity  itself  must  be  cared  for  by 
those  who  constitute  it.  Optimistic  altruism  is  as  vain  and 
empty  as  naive  egoism,  for  the  self  exists  in  a  human  order 
whose  condition  is  pessimistic,  and  the  attitude  to  be  sus- 
tained by  him  who  lives  his  life  as  human  is  the  sym- 
pathistic  one.  The  pessimism  here  involved,  however,  is 
only  the  serious  condition  of  humanity  striving  away  from 
the  immediate  toward  the  unknown  and  remote  condition 
of  things  which  it  sets  up  as  a  goal. 

When  egoism  and  altruism  are  discussed  upon  the 
naturistic  plane  of  self-love  and  benevolence,  there  can  be 
no  more  complete  reconciliation  than  that  of  compromise. 
The  course  of  humanity  is  actually  a  zig-zag  one  where  con- 
duct goes  from  ego  to  alter  and  alter  to  ego.  But,  as  the 
concluding  part  of  this  work  will  show,  the  striving  for  self- 
hood and  worldhood,  or  the  endeavor  to  secure  the  inness 
and  universality  of  human  life,  will  place  man  in  a  posi- 
tion where  he  need  no  longer  be  anxious  about  the  claims 
of  a  "self"  and  "society"  whose  metaphysical  status  is  that  of 
phenomenality,  while  their  moral  significance  is  far  re- 
moved from  the  conditions  of  human  dignity.  Ego-altruism 
is  far  below  the  plane  of  humanism. 


IV 

THE  TRANSMUTATION  OF  NATURISM  AND 

MORALISM 

I — ^THE  PROBLEM  OF  MORALISM 

The  free  development  of  man  upon  the  plane  of  naturism 
received  its  first  check  in  the  conflict  betwcn  ego  and  alter, 
or  the  isolated  individual  and  an  inclusive  humanity.  This 
provoked  the  problem  of  altruism.  In  close  connection  with 
this  ethical  readjustment  of  man  to  the  world  appears  an- 
other consideration:  the  moralistic  one.  Man  in  his  purely 
naturistic  capacity  ignores  and  injures  his  fellows  so  that 
his  egoism  presents  a  significant  problem;  at  the  same  time 
his  egoistic  acts  conflict  with  the  ideal  essence  of  humanity 
as  this  invests  all  individuals.  As  a  result  the  transition  to 
altruism  involves  also  a  transmutation  of  natural  impulses 
into  an  order  of  moralism.  The  alter  is  thus  something 
more  than  another  ego;  he  represents  the  ideal  world  of 
humanity,  and  upon  him  the  active  ego  practices  his  virtues 
and  his  vices.  In  this  way  there  comes  about  a  transmuta- 
tion of  naturistic  and  moralistic  principles  in  man  wherein 
the  form  of  ethics  becomes  virtue  while  its  content  is  ac- 
quired from  nature  as  feelings;  as  a  result  the  life  of  man 
in  sense  receives  character,  while  ideals,  instead  of  being 
empty  and  rationalistic,  find  a  content  in  actual  humanity. 

The  moralistic  view  of  man  in  his  empirical  character 
must  now  be  adjusted  to  the  claims  of  hedonism  and  in- 
tuitionism,  and  while  these  schools  have  usually  held  aloof 
in  the  determinations  of  humanity,  it  is  not  impossible  to 
find  some  common  ground  occupied  by  them.  Morality 
cannot  be  something  arbitrary  and  as  soon  as  one  attempts 
to  characterize  it  he  finds  he  must  have  recourse  to  the 
naturistic  side  of  human  life.  Thus  the  ideal  form  of  life 
cannot  be  discussed   apart  from   its  actual   content.     Both 

129 


130  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

views  of  man  unite  in  postulating  a  life-interest;  they  differ 
only  when  they  come  to  relate  this  to  man,  for  where  he- 
donism construes  this  interest  as  something  immediate  and 
concrete,  intuitionism  makes  it  ultimate  and  abstract.  And 
both  assume  an  order  of  humanity  in  and  about  the  indivi- 
dual, although  the  naturistic  view  of  man  sees  only  his 
individuality,  while  the  characteristic  one  assumes  his  human 
totality.  Between  these  opposed  views  appears  the  idea  of 
virtue  in  its  human  form.  Just  as  taste  stands  for  a  purely 
human  attitude  of  judgment  toward  the  feelings  that  one 
may  experience,  so  virtue,  instead  of  being  abstract,  involves 
the  same  human  element  of  judgment  directed  toward  man's 
activities.  Apart  from  human  interest  whether  surveyed  in 
actuality  or  ideality,  virtue  seems  incapable  of  determination. 

The  moral  ideal  that  inspires  men  and  the  moral  law 
that  rules  their  wills  can  have  no  significance  until  they  have 
been  related  to  the  world  of  persons.  Life  may  sink  below 
it  in  connection  with  the  animalistic,  just  as  it  may  con- 
ceivably rise  above  it  into  something  angelic,  but  genuine 
moral  thinking  takes  its  rise  in  the  temperate  zone  of  living 
humanity.  Can  the  moral  law  be  determined  impersonally? 
Even  the  categorical  imperative,  counselling  man  to  create 
by  his  conduct  a  universal  law,  suggests  that  that  law  applies 
to  living  human  subjects.  How  can  there  be  a  determina- 
tion of  moral  law  apart  from  the  inner  strivings  of  hu- 
manity? Creatures  of  sense  are  below  it,  creatures  of 
spirit  are  above  it;  in  itself,  virtue  is  man's  alone,  in  the 
same  way  that  beauty  is  his.  This  humanistic  determination 
of  virtue  does  not  forbid  the  elaboration  of  a  pure  ethical 
ideal ;  it  only  involves  a  living  conception  of  conduct  and  a 
purpose  for  moral  striving.  It  gives  a  genuine  notion  of 
intuition,  for  it  involves  a  synthesis  of  outer  sense  with  inner 
reason  in  a  morality  of  ideal  interest.  Man  does  not 
abandon  nature  to  live  in  an  order  of  pure  reason ;  he  trans- 
forms the  sensuous  elements  of  his  immediate  environment 
into  so  many  ideals. 

But  where  the  root  of  morality  is  found  deep  down 
in  nature,  its  flower  buds  in  the  higher  air  of  spirit,  and 
the  transmutation  of  pleasure  into  virtue  yields  virtue  as 
such.      Ethical    science    has    not    always    been    careful    to 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  131 

identify  its  subject  matter,  and  at  times  has  had  under  dis- 
cussion  a  mixture  of  organic  and  inorganic  moral  elements, 
l^or  this  reason,  opposed  schools  of  ethics  have  been  able 
to  carry  on  fairly  consistent  discussions  of  the  same  general 
problem,  because  they  have  viewed  it  in  different  fields,  one 
discovering  a  series  of  utilities,  the  other  an  order  of  virtues. 
In  isolation    each  view  is  false  to  living  humanity,  which  is 
beyond  such  extremes  of  concrete  and  abstract;  but  in  a 
synthesis  of  them  we  may  find  a  just  conception  of  human 
virtue.     Both  utilitarians  and  intuitionists  agree  that  ethics 
should   discuss   the   perfected   virtues  of   civilization   rather 
than  the  primitive  feelings  of  savagery;  they  differ  only  in 
the  way  that  they  approach  these  virtues,   for  where  one 
school  looks  upon  them  as  acquired  by  man,  the  other  re- 
gards  them   as  native  to  him.     In  Anglo-American  ethics 
this  reaJm  of  virtue  is  made  up  of  "commonsense  morality." 
f-rom  the  point  of  view  that  we  have  been  assuming,  there  is 
no  difficulty  in  asserting  that  the  creative  spirit  of  man  can 
transmute    simple    affairs    of    sense    into    ideals   of    reason. 
Pleasure  IS  thus  changed  into  beauty,  sensation  into  knowl- 
edge   and  why  should  not  impulse  become  moral  intuition  ? 
Intuitional  ethics  usually  stigmatizes  the  utilitarian  view 
ot  morality  heteronomous,  whereby  it  seems  to  indicate  that 
It  is  interested  m  the  form  of  conduct  rather  than  its  con- 
tent.    Heteronomy  is  none  the  less  morality  and  one  may 
criticise  It  only  when  it  is  represented  as  the  final  phase  of 
the  moral  life.    The  unfolding  of  humanity  leads  the  indivi- 
dual from  egoism  to  altruism,  just  as  it  now  involves  the 
passage  from  hedonism  to  heteronomy,  a  change  from  mere 
feeling  to  moral  law.     Where  the  moral  subject  first  recog- 
nizes the  alter  as  having  definite  ethical  claims,  he  finally 
sees  in  him  the  essence  of  moral  ideal  now  viewed  heterono- 
mously.  Indeed  unless  we  place  the  alter  in  the  ideal  position 
of   the   heteronomous   principle,   we   can    gwt   no   sufficient 
reason  why  the  ego  should  ever  defer  to  him.     One  man  is 
the   same   as   another   metaphysicallv,    but   from   the   moral 
standpoint  the  alter  assumes  an  extra  importance  inasmuch 
as  he  symbolizes  the  whole  world  of  humanity.     From  the 
larger  standpoint  of  human  life  as  a  form  of  spiritual  striv- 
ing,  both  altruistic  and   heteronomous  ethics  stand  in  the 


132  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

same  position  of  counterpart  to  the  ego  who  would  other- 
wise be  isolated  from  humanity.  In  itself,  altruism  ha^  an 
educative  value,  since  it  prepares  the  individual  for  virtue 
in  itself,  by  first  leading  him  to  respect  virtue  as  the  moral 
claim  of  another  who  is  qualitatively  like,  but  quantitatively 
distinct  from,  himself. 

2 — THE  CONFLICT  OVER  VIRTUE 

Heteronomy  advances  beyond  hedonism,  and  its  develop- 
ment as  an  ethical  theory  was  brought  about  only  after  a 
struggle  within  the  ranks  of  the  school  of  naturistic  ethics. 
The  school,  therefore,  has  won  a  victory  over  itself  and  has 
learned  a  lesson  that  the  intuitionist  could  not  have  taught 
it.     Hobbes  based  modern  hedonic  ethics  upon  the  principles 
of  both  egoism  and  relativism,  but  did  not  succeed  in  ad- 
vancing these  to  altruism  and  moralism.     In  the  civilized 
condition  of  man  as  opposed  to  his  warlike  state  of  nature, 
we  do  observe  some  regard  for  society  and  the  moral  law, 
but  its  basis  is  only  an  egoistic  and  relative  one.     Hume  was 
equally   determined   to   relate   moral   sentiments   to   human 
instincts  which  he,  in  contrast  to   Hobbes,  interprets  sym- 
pathetically rather  than  selfishly.     To  base  morality  upon 
morality  is  fallacious;  as  Hume  notes  this,  he  adds,  "An 
action  must  be  virtuous  before  we  can  have  a  regard  to  its 
virtue,"  and  then  seeks  to  establish  as  "an  undoubted  maxim, 
that  no  action  can  be  virtuous  or  morally  good,  unless  there 
be  in  human  nature  some  motive  to  produce  it,  distinct  from 
the  sense  of  its  morality."      (Treatise  of   Human  Nature, 
III,  2,  i).     This  is  a  calm  statement  of  heteronomy  which 
anticipates  Kant's  contrary  argument  by  nearly  half  a  cen- 
tury.    From  the  hedonic  standpoint,  it  may  be  regarded  as 
an  admission  that  pleasure  alone  cannot  express  the  form  of 
human  conduct  which,  in  one  way  or  another,  necessitates 
the  regard  for  abstract  virtue. 

The  sincerity  of  this  plea  for  a  heteronomous  view  of  the 
moral  life  was  threatened  by  the  heedless  utterances  of 
Mandeville  and  the  pedantic  conclusions  of  Bentham.  Like 
his  master,  Hobbes,  Mandeville  finds  nothing  original  in 
virtue ;  but  unlike  the  serious-minded  philosopher  who  sought 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  133 

to  explain  the  mechanics  of  society  in  a  fashion  which  should 
be    trustworthy,    the  author    of    the    "Fable    of   the    Bees" 
u      ^1    ^'^  misapplies  the  logic  of  the  "Leviathan"  and 
thus  falsely  concludes  that  the  regard  for  virtue,  which  no 
hedonist  can  lay  down  as  a  principle,  was  not  even  a  method, 
but  only  R  device  on  the  part  of  artful  rulers.    "It  is  evident 
that  the  first  rudiments  of  morality,   broached   by  skillful 
politicians,  to  render  men  useful  to  each  other  as  well  as 
tractable,  were  chiefly  contrived  that  the  ambitious  might 
reap  the  more  benefit  from  and  govern  vast  numbers  of  them 
with  the  greatest  ease  and  security."       Bentham's  view  of 
virtue  IS  consistent  with  the  flat  hedonism  laid  down  in  the 
Principles  of  Morals,"  but  it  violates  some  of  the  principles 
which  human  nature  itself  elaborates.     The  "Deonotology" 
brings  hedonism  to  a  climax  by  eliminating  the  regard  for 
virtue  altogether.     "The  talisman  of  arrogance,  indolence, 
and  Ignorance  IS  to  be  found  in  a  single  word,  an  authoritative 
imposture  which  in  these  pages  it  will  be  frequently  neces- 
sary to  unveil.     It  IS  the  word  'ought'— If  the  use  of  the 
word  be  p«rmissable,  it  ought  to  be  banished  from  the  vo- 
cabulary of  morals."     Deontology,  1834.  pp.  31-32.)     Thus 
does  the  later  thinker  vitiate  the  argument  of  Hume,  as 
Mandeville  had  negated  Hobbes. 

.  Utilitarianism  reveals  more  of  a  desire  to  adjust  itself  to 
living,  characteristic  humanity  than  to  be  consistent  with  the 
hedonic  ideal ;  and  thus  it  seeks  to  assume  a  representative 
relation  toward  virtue  as  such.     In  so  doing  it  involves  the 
results  of  human  history  without  adopting  its  process,  and 
recognizes  a  change  from  mere  hedonism  to  sheer  moralism 
without  assigning  a  sufficient  reason  for  such  a  departure. 
Ihe   formulation   of   utilitarianism,   whose   principles  were 
appreciated  by  these  three  opponents  of  moralism,  found  the 
school   anxious  to  conciliate   with   an   outwardly  perfected 
morality  which  the  elder  thinkers  had  flouted.     Mill  pre- 
sumed that  "the  desire  for  virtue  was  not  as  universal,  but  as 
authentic  a  fact,  as  the  desire  for  happiness."  (Utilitarianism, 
L.h.  IV.)      How  do  the  two  stand  related?    By  means  of  the 
association   of   ideas.     Virtue,   originally   nothing  in   itself, 
becomes  a  means  to  happiness,  and  then  is  cherished  for  its 
own  stkc,  just  as  money  is  first  derived  for  what  it  will  buy, 


134  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

but  afterwards  becomes  an  object  In  Itself.  And  thus  it 
comes  about  that  things  In  themselves  Indifferent,  but  asso- 
ciated with  others  which  concern  the  satisfaction  of  our 
desires,  finally  become  objects  In  themselves;  and  so  It  was 
with  virtue.  Originally  It  was  not  desirable,  but  since 
it  was  associated  with  conduciveness  to  pleasure  and  protec- 
tion from  pain,  it  became  a  good  In  Itself;  Its  heteronomy 
changing  to  autonomy  (lb.).  Virtue  thus  equals  a  for- 
gotten utility.  In  seeking  to  perfect  such  a  program.  Mill 
confines  his  activities  to  the  Individual  and  relies  wholly 
upon  the  principle  of  association,  and  it  Is  not  strange  that 
his  argument  is  not  convincing.  Nevertheless,  a  genuine 
problem  is  proposed,  and  apparently  for  the  first  time  In 
the  history  of  ethics  It  is  appreciated  that  morality  is  a 
metaphysical  subject  whose  nature  Is  not  to  be  taken  for 
granted  but  stands  in  need  of  theoretical  explanation.  What 
Mill  needed  for  the  solution  of  his  problem  was  a  historical 
principle  which  should  enlarge  the  field  of  action  many 
diameters ;  at  the  same  time,  he  stood  in  need  of  a  total  plan 
of  life,  rather  than  a  limited  method  of  practical  ethics. 
Viewed  In  the  light  of  humanity's  self-emancipation  from 
nature,  the  passage  from  the  sub-moral  to  the  moral  Is  cap- 
able of  explanation. 

In  its  modified  form,  the  utilitarian  doctrine  of  SIdgwIck 
is  valuable  chiefly  In  indicating  the  inability  of  the  school  to 
solve  its  own  problems.  Like  Mill,  Sidgwick  was  under 
pressure  while  treating  the  egoistic  question,  and  found  It  as 
necessary  to  desert  his  own  school  as  Mill  had  to  abandon 
all  forms  of  consistency ;  and  in  the  second  problem  which  his 
school  assumed,  the  treatment  of  moralism,  at  the  hands  of 
Sidgwick,  is  only  of  a  suggestive  nature.  This  latest  forni  of 
utilitarianism  cannot  rest  content  with  the  static  view  which, 
with  Bentham,  submerges  moralism  under  hedonism,  nor 
with  the  dynamic  formulation  of  the  problem  which  made 
virtue  the  outgrowth  of  utility.  Sidgwick  takes  as  his  point 
of  departure  the  heteronomy  of  Hume,^  and  urges 
that  moralism  may  be  unconsciously  utilitarian  and  of  a 
hedonistic  influence.  Unwilling  to  separate  hedonism  from 
moralism  and  unable  to  connect  them  by  any  substantial 
bond,  he  suggests  that  the  two  realms  are  united,  not  so 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  135 

much  by  a  process  of  association,  as  by  means  of  "complex 
coincidence"  (Methods  of  Eth.  Bk.  iv,  Ch.  iii.)  At  the 
same  time,  this  method  does  not  assume  that  the  naturistic 
and  the  characteristic  are  Identical,  for  in  the  crysallizcd 
morality  of  humanity  experience,  Sidgwick  finds  only  a 
"felicific  tendency."  (lb.)  Such  is  the  slender  connection 
between  the  real  and  the  ideal  in  hedonism. 


3 — HETERONOMY    AND    HUMANITY 

The  entrance  of  moralism  into  the  realm  of  naturism 
means  little  to  the  rationalistic  thinker  who  rejoices  in  the 
burning,  shining  light  of  perfected  morality  and  systematized 
ethics,  but  he  who  wishes  to  survey  the  slow  process  by  which 
humanity  has  urged  itself  through  nature  toward  self-perfec- 
tion can  only  be  gratified  in  witnessing  this  new  departure 
of  hedonism.  Viewed  naturally  from  below,  it  tends  to 
Invest  virtue  with  living  significance  and  indicates  an  ad- 
vance in  morality  comparable  to  the  postulate  of  altruism. 
The  reluctance  with  which  pure  hedonism  makes  these 
admissions,  in  contrast  as  it  is  with  the  anxiety  of  utilitarian- 
ism to  explain  and  adopt  both  altruism  and  moralism,  shows 
with  what  an  effort  humanity  seeks  to  release  itself  from 
nature.  Thus  is  the  spell  of  nature  broken  and,  in  his 
progress  toward  humanity,  man  makes  consistent  use  of 
the  newly  acquired  otherness  of  altruism  and  hedonism.  All 
morality  is  relative  to  humanity,  and  ethics  is  but  a  means, 
though  an  Indispensable  one,  by  which  It  is  realized.  Em- 
pirical relativism  makes  virtue  subordinate  to  happiness; 
Idealistic  relativism  reduces  both  the  moral  and  the  hedonic 
to  the  claims  of  perfect  humanity.  Both  hedonism  and 
rigorism  fail  to  survey  man  comprehensively,  and  the  result 
of  their  one-sidedness  is  this  conflict  between  egoism  and 
altruism,  autonomy  and  heteronomy.  Happiness,  instead  of 
assuming  a  modest  place  in  the  whole  life  of  humanity,  is 
made  the  central  issue,  for  where  one  view  considers  it 
everything  the  other  regards  It  as  nothing.  The  immediate 
side  of  man's  nature  deserves  recognition,  and  it  cannot 
be  overlooked  that,  as  humanity  was  once  wholly  hedonic, 
this  trait  will  ever  survive  in  the  total  striving  for  human 


136  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


•elf hood  and  worldhood.     It  is  happiness  which  is  relative, 
not  morality;  the  absolute  is  spiritual  humanity. 

Virtues  vary  in  no  arbitrary  fashion,  but  according  to 
the  continuous  plan  of  human  striving,  which  brings  about 
the  organization  of  certain  types  of  moral  excellence.  In 
this  manner,  it  comes  about  that,  when  man  is  upon  the 
plane  of  nature,  his  ideals  are  not  purely  naturistic,  and 
while  his  atmosphere  is  that  of  sense,  he  is  not  wholly  hc- 
donic.  Individual  prudence  and  benevolence  toward  society 
are  not  the  only  norms  which  decorate  the  theory  of  eudae- 
monism;  temperance  and  courage,  which  were  among  the 
cardinal  virtues,  are  involved  in  a  view  of  life  which  has  at 
heart  the  material  interest  of  individual  and  race.  Hu- 
manity does  not  disdain  to  dwell  with  those  who,  in  a 
primitive  age  live  close  to  nature,  or  with  them  that  in  our 
advanced  civilization  are  the  people  of  the  pavement.  Paint- 
ing, which  shows  how  humanity  is  studying  itself,  is  not 
pledged  to  such  examples  of  rafinnement  as  are  found  in 
court  and  drawing-room;  peasants  and  beggars  have  their 
place  in  the  studio;  and,  perhaps,  when  art  would  show 
how  inevitable  is  the  hold  of  nature  upon  man,  and  yet 
how  victorious  is  humanity  over  its  material  fate,  it  has  no 
better  medium  than  that  of  genre  painting.  Philosophy  can 
do  no  less  and  in  the  spirit  of  a  sympathetic  humanism  it 
may  find  indelible  traces  of  developing  spiritual  life  through 
these  crude  mediums. 

4 — ^THB    RELATIVITY    OF   THE   GOOD 

By  reason  of  the  presence  of  these  hedonic  virtues,  the 
argument  for  relativism  is  made  more  plausible  than  in  the 
case  of  other  moral  ideals  like  veracity  and  honesty.  One 
should  be  temperate  and  courageous,  not  for  the  sake  of  these 
virtues  as  such,  or  by  reason  of  any  special  moral  sense,  but 
because  the  prudent  and  brave  courses  of  conduct  are  ne- 
cessary to  human  welfare  in  both  the  one  and  the  many. 
Such  is  the  hedonic  argument  which  modern  ethics  has  re- 
duced to  a  consistent  heteronomy.  When  other  virtues, 
which  belong  to  a  higher  plane  of  human  striving,  are  sub- 
jected to  analysis,  it  becomes  difficult  to  argue  in  a  heter- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  137 

onomous  and  hedonic  fashion,  inasmuch  as  these  moral  and 
mental  ideals  seem  to  have  a  value  in  themselves.  Thus 
veracity  may  have  its  utilitarian  place  in  the  world,  since 
society  needs  truth  for  its  intercourse,  yet  truth  is  so  vast 
and  impersonal  that  one  feels  compelled  to  urge  it  for  its 
own  sake.  Honesty  plays  the  part  of  an  economic  utility  and 
yet  we  feel  safer  when  we  raise  it  above  the  market  and 
make  of  it  an  ideal  excellence  to  be  pursued  for  its  own 
value.  Where  benevolence  can  never  be  purely  autonomous, 
justice  can  never  be  thoroughly  heteronomous.  The  only 
constant  is  endless  humanity  with  its  spiritual  life. 

Heteronomy  is  less  than  humanism ;  pleasure  is  inferior  to 
personality.      To    understand    man    who    experiences   these 
pleasures  and  pains,  his  being  must  be  surveyed  sub  specie 
humani.      Then    it   will    appear   that    desire,    as   a   psychic 
combination   of  will  and  affection,  is  magnified  many  dia- 
meters by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  it  is  man's  desire,  put  forth 
for   the   purpose   of   human    realization,   while   pleasure    is 
surcharged  with  potency  by  reason  of  its  reception  into  a 
human   soul.      Human   spontaneity   thus   transmutes   desire 
into  an  extra-psychical  force,  while  human  sensitivity  acts 
as  an  alembic  to  transform  pleasure   into  a  more   than  a 
natural   product.      Relativity   now   seems   to   stand   on   the 
side  of  hedonism  rather  than  of  intuitionism ;  for  pleasure, 
instead  of  being  a  constant,  assumes  the  form  of  a  variable 
which  has  its  basis  in  the  permanency  of  human  existence. 
As  it  has  been  shown  from  our  examination  of  the  hedonic  in 
man,  pleasure  consists  in  some  form  of  activity.     Here,  it 
needs  only  be  pointed  out  that  the  assertion  of  humanity 
within  man  is  the  real  force  which  is  active  upon  the  plane 
of  nature  and  in  the  atmosphere  of  hedonism;  no  artificial 
utilitarianism  of  the  present  can  obscure  this  obvious  teaching 
of  history.     With  primitive  man,  the  hedonic  is  to  be  ex- 
pected, and  since  man  can  never  be  wholly  independent  of 
nature,    his   life   will   ever   bear   an   ineradicable   trace   of 
eudaemonism. 

Through  the  enveloping  medium  of  the  world  of  hu- 
manity, hedonic  benefits  receive  an  unwonted  character.  In 
response  to  benevolence,  the  ego  is  not  presenting  pleasure 
to  the  alter,  but  in  the  half -conscious  sense  of  a  single  and 


138  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

indivisible  humanity,  one  soul  furthers  the  advancement  of 
another.  The  presenting  of  gifts  among  friends  and  acts 
of  charity  in  connection  with  the  ill-favored  have  a  symbolic 
significance  and  appeal  to  the  totality  of  man's  being.  Be- 
nevolence becomes  a  virtue,  not  only  because  of  certain 
empirical  needs  of  individuals,  but  by  reason  of  intelligible 
values  which  reside  in  human  souls  as  such.  He  who  thus 
aids  another,  advances  humanity  in  its  progress  toward  self- 
hood, and  no  matter  how  definitely  perceptible  and  imme- 
diately practical  that  service  may  be,  hedonism  can  never 
circumscribe  it.  Here  is  another  reason  for  ascribing  rela- 
tivity to  happiness  rather  than  to  virtue,  for  surely  an  animal 
function  like  enjoyment  cannot  remain  the  same  in  the 
whole  range  of  life  where  the  fineness  and  complexity  of  the 
nervous  system  exhibits  such  marked  degrees  of  difference. 
Man's  pleasure  is  man's  pleasure;  his  humanity  affects  his 
mind  as  well  as  his  body. 

Upon  direct  analysis,  the  problem  of  moralism  seems  to 
be  too  complicated  for  this  simple  statement  of  the  asso- 
ciationist,  too  profound  for  the  bland  solution  of  the 
utilitarian.  We  may  grant  that  there  is  some  connection 
between  hedonism  and  moralism,  for  if  that  be  wanting  we 
shall  have  no  ostensible  method  by  which  to  relate  the  primi- 
tive period  of  naturism  to  the  more  advanced  ideals  of 
characteristic  ethics.  To  find  the  place  where  heteronomy 
becomes  autonomy,  the  point  where  the  co-efficient  of  moral 
expansion  changes  sign,  is  beyond  the  possibilities  of  the 
associational  school.  The  first  error  consists  in  the  state- 
ment, according  to  which  the  "moral"  life  exists  and  exerts 
itself  in  a  purely  heteronomous  or  hedonic  manner,  for  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  conceive  of  men  as  living  in  such  an 
instinctive  fashion  as  though  his  existence  were  purely 
"entomological",  as  Balzac  would  express  it.  Then,  the 
finished  argument  which  derives  or  demonstrates  disinter- 
ested autonomous  conduct  proves  too  much,  for  our  human 
ideal  is  not  the  abstract  rectitude  of  rationalism,  but  a  living 
sense  of  worth.  Thus  we  are  not  called  upon  to  pass  in 
review  the  transition  from  concrete  hedonism  to  abstract 
moralism,  both  of  which  conditions  are  alien  to  humanity, 
but  have  only  to  account  for  the  fact  that  man  has  learned 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  139 

to  place  an  ideal  value  upon  conduct. 

Nietzche's  criticism  of  the  English  psychologists,  to  whom, 
as  he  admits,  we  are  indebted  for  the  only  theory  we  have 
of  the  ongm  of  the  concept  "good",  tends  to  set  the  problem 
of  moralism  in  the  reverse  order.  This  seems  to  be  due  to 
the  fact  that  in  Nietzsche's  mind  the  term  "good"  does  not 
apply  to  the  unselfish  act,  but  on  the  contrary  it  connotes 
something  egoistic.  Hence  he  protests  that  the  idea  of 
goodness  was  not  invented  by  those  to  whom  goodness  was 

TTu'  u      ""j  *]"  ~'?^'f  y  "  ^^  «  characterization  which 
the   high-minded    applied    to    themselves    to    indicate   their 
power  and  nobility.     It  was  a  decision  handed  down  from 
an  aristocratic  source,  not  a  custom  which  grew  up  upon  a 
democratic  soil.      (Genealogy  of   Morals,   I.   S.   2)       The 
primitive  man  in  the  person  of  the  Aryan,  the  Greek,  the 
original  German  accustomed  himself  to  believe  in  his  own 
superiority,   while    he    taught   the   weaker   ones   whom   he 
subjugated    to   consider    themselves   bad,    because   of   their 
'^^..""l- u^*?^   philological    explanation    of    "good"    and 
bad    which  Nietzsche  gives  is  so  faulty  that  its  suggestive- 
ness  IS  well  nigh  lost  to  view,  but  on  the  philosophical  side 
he  shows  his  strength  in  subsuming  all  moral  truth  under 
the  category  of  value.     At  the  same  time  he  constantly  re- 
minds us  that  within  the  heart  of  humanity  great  changes 
can  take  place  whereby  the  moral  ideal  may  undergo  trans- 
valuation.  ^ 

From  our  point  of  view,  which  reveals  to  us  the  spiritual 
order  within  which  humanity  exists  and  works,  we  have 
nothing  to  fear  from  the  transmutation  of  naturism  into 
moralism.  Humanity  itself  contains  the  explanation  of 
morality  and,  as  we  shall  when  we  come  to  examine  the 
concepts  of  characteristic  ethics,  conscience  and  rectitude, 
freedom  and  duty  are  to  be  resolved  into  so  many  states  of 
inner  humanity.  As  human  norms  they  cannot  be  deduced 
from  nature  nor  reduced  to  reason,  but  must  be  considered 
as  the  structure  which  humanity  assumes  in  its  striving  after 
self-reahzation.  For  this  reason,  mere  pleasure  in  its  he- 
dome  form  IS  as  far  removed  from  the  moral  ideal  as  sheer 
unrelated  virtue,  and  where  morality  in  order  to  exist  must 
set  up  some  relation  to  the  world,  its  connection  with  man 


I40  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

must  be  consonant  with  his  inner  nature.  Hence  what  we 
have  been  calling  heteronomy  is  only  the  general  truth  of 
humanism  in  morality. 


NATURISM   AS    EUDAEMONISM 

The  claims  of  naturistic  ethics  have  not  been  thoroughly 
satisfied   by  a  hedonic  theory  which,  in  seeking  to  explain 
the  strivmg  of  man  toward  humanity,  has  advanced   from 
pleasure  to  utility,   from  utility  to  the  preservation  of  the 
species      In  all  this,  hedonism  has  not  waited  to  ask  what 
man  is  for,  nor  has  its  zeal  for  happiness  allowed  it  to  inquire 
wherein  his  well-being  consists.     Not  consistent  with  itself, 
hedonism  has  been  similarly  unable  to  relate  its  norms  to  the 
world   of   nature   which    it   aspires   to   represent.      For   this 
reason   of   insufficiency   another  view  of   man's  life   in   the 
world  of  time  and  space  is  made  necessary,  and  eudaemonism 
assumes  the  burden  of  proof  at  the  place  where  hedonism 
lays  It  down.     Eudaemonism  seeks  to  justify  the  naturism 
of  human  existence  by  raising,  first  of  all,  the  question  of 
immediacy  v,\,trthy  it  seeks  to  show  that  man  was  not  meant 
to  depart  from  nature  for  the  sake  of  dwelling  in  a  deri- 
vative world  of  culture.     This  concerns  the  form  of  human 
happiness,  whose  content  is  discussed  in  a  manner  unknown 
to  hedonism ;  happiness  is  found  to  consist  in  some  form  of 
flf/it7/y.     Thus   in   a   dual   manner,   eudaemonism   discusses 
the   problem   of  life   and   aims  to   show   how  man,   in   the 
immediacy  of  his  nature-life  is  supposed  to  realize  and  con- 
tent himself  with  activity.     Because  it  is  so  thorough,  the 
cudaemonistic   argument   is   far   more   serious  than   the   he- 
dome  one;  if  it  be  correct,  man's  conflict  with  nature  for  the 
sake  of  a  pure  humanity  is  unnecessary,  if  not  in  vain. 

I— THE   FORM   OF   HAPPINESS   AS   IMMEDIACY 

The  spirit  of  eudaemonism  is  that  of  contemplation,  in 
the  course  of  which  it  seeks  mere  contact  with  nature,  and 
does  not  consent  to  submit  to  its  material  interests.     In  its 

141 


142  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

enthusiasm  for  nature,  hedonism  was  not  in  a  condition  to 
approach  its  idol  in  an  acceptable  fashion,  and  it  failed  to  do 
justice  either  to  itself  or  to  its  subject.     True  naturism  is 
still  to  be  sought  by  means  of  a  method  which   does   not 
calculate  pleasures  and  pains,  or  reduce  natural  benefits  to 
principles  of  utility  and   preservation.      Man   is  still   unac- 
counted for,  while  nature  is  not  yet  possessed.     For  this  rea- 
son, the  eudaemonistic  method  becomes  necessary  in  the  ad- 
justment of  man  to  the  universe,  and  it  seems  to  present  a 
more  promising  plan,  inasmuch  as  it  looks  upon  nature,  not 
hedonically,  but  aesthetically,  as  though  it  were  the  shadow 
of  humanity.     It  appears,  then,  that  man  is  hardly  capable 
of  a  concrete  life,   for   his  sensations  ascend  to   ideas  and 
his  passions  pass  into  sentiments.     Man  in  his  humanity  is 
so  over-naturized  that  he  cannot  be  held  down  to  the  plan 
of  utilitarianism,  and  in  the  presence  of  his  victorious  self- 
assertion  the  stolid  maxims  of  this  calculating  school  are  ill- 
adapted  to  the  genius  of  humanity.     To  be  free  and  to  feel 
free  from  the  plodding  pleasures  of  a  concrete  experience  is 
an  impulse  which  redeems  man  from  hedonic  fate,   for  he 
is  too  active  a  creature  to  rest  content  with  the  passive  re- 
ception of  pleasure,  and  too  much  a  lover  of  power  to  exhaust 
his  energies  in  the  quest  of  happiness  as  such.     There  is  in 
him  an  unconscious  and  involuntary  form  of  aspiration  that 
habitually  draws  him  away  from  the  concreteness  of  animal 
existence,  and  while  this  may  be  only  a  negative  idealism, 
which,  in  the  case  of  art,  delights  in  the  unrealities  of  drama 
and  romance,  it  is  sufficient  to  show  that  a  given  form  of 
existence,  with  an  accompanying  quality  of  pleasure,  is  not 
enough  for  a  humanistic  creature  whose  destiny  lies  beyond 
the  borders  of  the  phenomenal  world-order.     To  content  a 
developed  form  of  existence  whose  mental  life  is  vast  enough 
to  view  nature  in  its  totality,  is  beyond  the  power  of  the 
sense-world. 

Man  is  not  so  much  hedonic  as  he  is  humanistic,  and  in 
the  quest  of  life  he  cares  not  so  much  for  pleasure  as  for  the 
thrill  of  existence  which  contact  with  the  v^orld  affords.  In 
this  search  for  consciousness  of  humanity,  pain  will  do  as 
well  as  pleasure,  just  as  life  is  represented  by  tragedy  as 
well  as  by  comedy,  if  not  better.    Just  as  the  hedonic  law 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  143 

points  out  how  pleasure  and  pain   are  relative  to  the  de- 
mands of  life,  wherein  one  indicates  benefit  and  the  other 
harm,  so  the  general  principle  of  humanity,  which  postulates 
man  as  striving  onward  from  nature  to  culture,  reveals  how 
incidental  are  these  simple  feelings  in  the  general  program  of 
life.     The  hedonic  in  man  can  never  be  denied,  nor  should 
one  care  to  ignore  it,  but  it  can  be  asserted  that  the  total 
interest  of  life  is  greater  than  any  search  for  happiness,  just 
as  the  positing  of  humanity  is  not  due  to  any  felicific  in- 
clination or  utilitarian  consequence.     The  animal  has  pleas- 
ure-pain;   man    alone    has   happiness,    because   only    he    has 
world-position  and  destiny.     And  it  is  the  fate  of  man  to 
transcend  happiness  for  the  sake  of  achieving  humanity ;  with 
the  beast  there  is  no  escape  from  the  hedonic  law  of  the 
organism ;  with  man  there  is  always  the  possibility  of  choosing 
whether  he  will  ally  himself  with  the  feelin^c  or  not.     Thus 
he  may  refuse  happiness  and   resolve  to  suflFer,  as  many  a 
noble  soul  has  done;  and  it  is  only  the  possibility  of  unified, 
unlimited   humanity  in   the  individual   that  creates  such  a 
spectacle.     Hence  it  is  not  the  quivering  of  the  flesh,  but 
the  thrill  of  the  spirit  that  characterizes  human  enjoyment. 
That  form  of  contemplation  which  kept  the  gods  calm 
and  suflFered  not  the  graces  to  be  ruffled,  partook  of  a  cer- 
tain   naivete    due    to    innocence    of    any    internal    conflict. 
Pleasure  and  pain  they  felt  without  weighing  their  hedonic 
values,   while  desire   failed  to   draw  them  away   from  the 
mean.     Modern  eudaemonism  seeks  immediacy  in  a  pathetic 
spirit  as  if  it  were  a  lost  art,   and,   indeed,   one  may  be 
astonished  at  such  a  movement  as  Hellenism  which  worked 
out  a  certain  philosophy  of  life  without  appealing  to  duty  or 
indulging  In  doubt.     A  modern  like  Winckelmann  feels  his 
estrangement  from  nature  when  he  beholds  the  memorials  of 
classicism,  while  Schiller  returns  to  Pagan  poetry  as  to  a 
lost   paradise.      To   most   moderns   the   path   to   immediate 
eudaemonism  Is  blocked  by  certain  spiritual  scruples,  which 
persuade  us  that  we  must  rend  ourselves  In  doubt  before  we 
can  believe,  and  suffer  the  pangs  of  repentance  before  we 
can  become  upright.    We  seek  after  a  second  world  without 
having  appreciated  the  first  one,  and  now  we  are  wondering 
whether  the  remote  future  will  commend  our  Gothic  striving 


144  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

and  romantic  suffering.  Will  the  "music  of  the  future"  find 
the  world  of  spirit  in  Wagner's  world  of  tone,  and  admit 
that  a  superman  like  Siegfried  stands  in  need  of  salvation? 
Have  we  not  been  too  lyrical  in  our  pessimism  as  we  recalled 
how  Schopenhauer  loved  to  play  the  flute?  In  the  adjust- 
ment of  our  spiritual  needs  to  objective  facts,  our  philosophy 
of  life  has  been  like  a  canvas  by  Delacroix,  which  endeavored 
to  find  in  the  lines  and  colors  of  nature  little  more  than  a 
picture  of  human  emotion.  Our  romanticism  has  led  us 
away  from  nature  and  its  eudaemonistic  life. 

Hellenism  was  forever  delivered  from  that  sense  of  striv- 
ing which  pervades  our  morals  and  makes  us  keen  to  consci- 
ence and  alive  to  duty.  With  its  aristocratic  ideals,  it  never 
sought  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number,  but 
pursued  the  perfection  of  the  superior  man  whose  culture 
has  come  down  to  us.  In  the  form  of  an  objective  eudac- 
monism,  the  sense  of  the  immediate  acted  as  ground  and 
motive  for  classicism^  which  was  as  far  removed  from  hedonic 
calculus  as  from  rigor istic  compunction.  If  the  utilitarian 
method  is  obvious,  and  human  intuitions  are  intuitive,  it  is 
remarkable  that  the  Greeks  were  so  wanting  in  the  per- 
ception of  a  moral  sense  or  the  claims  of  benevolence. 
Pleasure  had  not  been  put  in  a  precarious  position  by  sub- 
jecting it  to  analysis,  hence  what  in  modern  thought  has 
resulted  in  hedonism  was  then  naive  and  eudaemonistic, 
qualities  which  are  destined  to  cling  to  human  nature  every- 
where. Stoics  and  Epicureans,  who  endeavored  to  reduce 
life  to  particular  methods,  produced  an  inverted  eudac- 
monism-in  the  form  of  ataraxy-apathy. 

In  a  metaphysical  fashion,  ancient  ethics  was  fitted  for 
eudaemonism  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  it  ever  postulated  an 
objective  good  rather  than  a  subjective  duty.  To  such  a 
conception  the  whole  dialectic  of  Plato  was  consecrated,  and 
the  idea  of  the  good  became  the  highest  knowledge  (Rcpub. 
505  )>  while  as  an  ideal  it  was  to  be  realized  in  the  best- 
ordered  state  (lb.  462).  The  good  is  likewise  associated 
with  both  knowledge  and  happiness,  and  in  such  a  manner 
that  there  is  both  wisdom  in  the  life  of  pleasure  and  pleasure 
in  the  life  of  wisdom  (Philebus,  20).  So  compact  is  the 
classic  conception  of  the  ideal  in  life  that  it  is  not  divided 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  145 

against  itself,  even  when  marked  by  the  lower  principle  of 
utility,  which  plays  its  part  as  a  criterion  in  the  ideal  state, 
whereby  it  is  concluded  that  the  most  beneficial  marriages 
are  the  most  holy  (Repub.  457-458).  It  is  the  same 
principle  that  leads  Plato  to  discourse  so  bitterly  against  the 
artists,  who  deal,  not  in  reality,  but  in  imitation,  whereby 
the  painter  is  judged  to  be  inferior  to  the  carpenter  (lb.  597). 
With  such  favorable  recommendations,  the  life  of  eudae- 
monia  could  not  fail  to  impress  classicism  which  reduced  it 
to  an  optimistic  type  of  conduct.  In  the  unity  of  classic 
realism,  antiquity  never  found  it  necessary  to  create  a  good 
that  already  existed  in  itself,  or  to  strive  after  virtues  which 
appeared  naturally  as  attributes  of  the  single  good  that 
pervaded  the  universe.  The  good  was  finished  product  and 
virtue  a  likely  tendency ;  and,  in  the  case  of  an  all-embracing 
cosmos,  man  could  only  acquiesce  in  the  genial  bent  of  nature. 


2 — HAPPINESS    AS    POSSESSION    OF    THE    GOOD 

In  contrast  with  this  unified  and  naturistic  view  of  the 
macrocosm,  which  had  instilled  into  the  heart  of  the  ancient  a 
perfect  cudaemonia  knowing  neither  doubt  nor  repentance, 
arose  the  modern  culture-conflict  which  set  man  in  opposi- 
tion to  nature  and  in  conflict  with  himself.  Not  only  happi- 
ness itself,  but  the  approach  to  it  became  a  burning  question 
for  both  intellect  and  will.  In  the  midst  of  this  problem, 
which  was  quite  foreign  to  the  purely  hedonic  composition 
of  happiness  out  of  individual  pleasures,  appeared  certain 
traits  of  human  nature  which  must  be  reckoned  with ;  hence 
arose  pairs  of  leading  questions:  Does  happiness  consist  in 
the  possession  of  the  desired  object,  or  the  mere  pursuit  of  it? 
This  question  involved  the  whole  difference  betwen  classic 
paganism  and  Christian  romanticism.  Is  happiness  to  be 
found  in  contemplation  by  the  intellect,  or  in  conquest  by  the 
will?  As  antiquity  had  laid  its  emphasis  upon  the  contem- 
plative possession  of  the  world  according  to  the  good,  so 
modernity  assumed  the  other  point  of  view  and  decided  in 
favor  of  active  pursuit  as  the  only  safe  means  to  happiness. 
The  whole  setting  of  the  problem  was  further  marked  by  a 
view   of   life   according  to   immediacy   or   with   rcsj>ect   to 


146  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

remoteness.  Hence  the  subject  of  eudacmonia  had  to  ask 
himself  whether  his  well-being  consisted  in  the  intellectual 
contemplation  of  the  world  of  immediacy,  or  the  volitional 
conquest  of  the  world  of  remoteness. 

While  Hellenism  had  set  the  standard  of  genuine  eudae- 
monism,  the  modern  was  not  disposed  to  abandon  the  quest 
of  what  seemed  to  be  a  lost  art;  although  he  used  his  own 
methods  in  investigating  the  question  before  him.  At  times 
he  has  been  a  classicist,  at  times  a  romanticist,  and  again  a 
pure  naturist.  This  condition  of  human  consciousness  showed 
itself  early  in  the  nineteenth  century  in  the  art  of  David, 
Delacroix  and  the  Barbizon  School.  Where  the  classic 
landscape  was  intellectual  and  seemed  bent  upon  repre- 
senting the  ideal  forms  of  nature  and  humanity,  the  ro- 
mantic scene  was  suggestive  of  the  irrational  will  which  per- 
verted the  natural  order  and  made  the  landscape  reflect  the 
emotions  of  humanity.  The  Barbizon  artists  revealed  the 
fact  that,  apart  from  tradition,  man  in  his  humanity  may 
contemplate  nature  in  all  its  immediacy;  and  the  atmosphere 
of  that  art  which  was  established  by  Millet,  Corot,  and 
Rousseau  was  one  of  the  grand  totality  which  envelops  both 
nature  and  humanity.  In  such  a  genuine  return  to  nature  as 
appeared  on  the  edge  of  Fontainebleau  forest,  the  world  of 
humanity  appeared  raised  above  conflict  and  free  from  all 
distraction,  while  the  sanity  of  our  own  age  appeared  in 
forms  both  charming  and  convincing. 

While  the  two  general  types  of  eudaemonia  are  easily 
established  in  the  abstract,  the  liquid  composition  of  hu- 
manity in  general  and  the  contingent  qualities  of  the  in- 
dividual render  it  difficult  to  adjust  the  leading  thinkers  to 
the  clear  divisions.  At  the  outset,  one  must  appreciate  the 
great  difference  between  Aristotle  and  Bacon,  although 
when  we  attempt  to  indicate  this,  likeness  will  appear  as 
strikingly  as  contrast.  We  should  expect  the  ancient  to 
perfect  his  view  of  eudaemonia  in  terms  of  contemplation, 
but  this  he  does  not  do  without  introducing  an  element  of 
energism ;  and  we  want  the  modern  to  fulfill  the  promises  of 
his  anti-Aristotelianism  and  abandon  the  ideal  of  contem- 
plation for  that  of  conquest;  but,  as  we  shall  see,  his  ideal 
of  life  and  learning  is  sometimes  expressed  in  perfect  Aris- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  147 

totclian  terminology.  Since  it  was  Bacon  who  pointed  out 
that,  with  respect  to  actual  progress,  we  are  the  true  ancients, 
It  is  permissible  for  him  to  involve  certain  elements  of  the 
so-called  antiquity  in  his  own  speculations.  With  here  an 
Athenian  age  of  culture,  and  there  an  Italian  Renaissance 
behind  the  thinker,  it  is  not  extraordinary  that  the  methods 
of  reflection  should  cross  and  indicate  more  than  one  point 
of  likeness.  Yet  it  needs  the  influence  of  more  than  one 
modern  to  counterbalance  the  activity  of  this  fortunate 
Pagan. 

In  connection  with  Aristotle's  finished  view  of  human 
happiness  which  was  implicit  in  classicism,  we  may  note  the 
peculiar  conditions  of  culture  which  furthered  such  a  method 
of  idealizing  life.     Coming  after  the  age  of  Pericles  with  its 
perfections  in  culture  and  civilization,  both  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle  seem    possessed   of   the   complacent   feeling  that   they 
are  living  in  a  finished  world  toward  which  their  own  duty 
is  merely  one  of  ordering  and  comprehending.     Such  a  con- 
viction   shows    itself    in    Plato's    theory    of    the    state    and 
Aristotle's   view  of   art,   wherein   what   had   been   done   in 
Sparta  and  Athens  was  the  counterpart  of  what  was  thought 
by  these  philosophers.     The  limitations  of  such  a  reductive 
method   appears   later   in   the    particular   case   of  Aristotle, 
who  with   all   his  genuine   interest  in   nature   is  not  to  be 
shaken    from    his   classic    conviction    that    reality   has   been 
reached,  even  though  Alexander  opens  new  fields  of  research 
in  the  study  of  nature.     To  Aristotle,  the  dead  Pericles  was 
more  than  the  living  Alexander.     The  retrospective  habit 
of  Greek  speculation  precluded  any  such  principle  of  dis- 
covery as  Bacon,  an  opponent  of  Aristotelianism,  advocated 
in    modern    times.      Modern    naturism   with,    first,    a   new 
physical  world  and,  then,   a  new  biological  one  before  it, 
resorted  to  the  creative  will  rather  than  the  contemplative 
intellect  and,  confronted  by  no  hope  of  possession,  it  con- 
secrated its  energies  to  pursuit  and  discovery. 

Yet  this  intellectual  activity  has  never  been  suflficient  to 
carry  man  beyond  nature.  We  may  conquer  nature  by 
obeyinjT  her  in  the  study  of  science,  but  we  are  again  con- 
quered by  the  application  of  science  to  industry.  Science 
contains  no  suggestion  of  the  emancipation  to  be  found  in 


148  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUxMAN  LIFE 

art,  and  in  a  modern  age  where  our  physical  and  political 
theories  tend  to  liberate  the  individual  from  nature  and 
society,  the  spectacle  of  a  whole  man  who  lives  his  life  in 
his  own  way  has  been  a  subject  of  wonder  among  poets  from 
Schiller  to  Sudermann.  The  ancient  who  looked  upon  the 
human  microcosm  as  a  part  of  nature  and  regarded  "man 
as  by  nature  a  political  animal" — endowed  man  with  more 
unity  and  completeness  than  does  the  advanced  thought 
of  the  present.  For  this  reason,  the  antique  ideal  of  imme- 
diacy toward  nature  makes  its  appeal  to  Shakespeare  who 
invests  the  romantic  with  sufficient  realism  to  permit  its  com- 
parison with  the  antique  standard.  It  is  for  just  this  element 
of  Aristotelianism  that  Tolstoi  has  recently  criticised  Shake- 
speare, as  one  who  upheld  healthy  activity  and  the  golden 
mean;  or  an  ideal  of  "action  at  all  costs,  the  absence  of  all 
ideals,  moderation  in  everything,  the  conservation  of  the 
forms  of  life  once  established,  and  the  end  justifying  the 
means."  (On  Shakespeare,  Pt.  vi).  Thus  is  it  possible 
to  perceive  in  moderns  like  Shakespeare  and  Goethe  the 
idealization  of  immediacy  and  a  life  of  self-limiting  activity; 
the  greatness  of  the  genius  here  displayed  consisted  in  con- 
tracting the  infinite  into  convenient  proportions  and  in  re- 
storing remote  interests  to  the  domain  of  immediate  life. 
The  world  is  changed  to  a  stage  and  the  longer  drama  of 
humanity  is  so  condensed  that  it  resembles  Hamlet's  play 
within  the  play. 


3 — ^THE 


"work  of  contemplation" 


In  checking  the  hasty  arguments  of  hedonism  we  have 
already  had  to  employ  the  careful  psychology  of  Aristotle 
(cf.  supra  p.  99)  ;  we  must  now  survey  his  own  theory  in  a 
more  constructive  fashion  as  expressing  the  ideals  of  cudac- 
monia.  It  might  appear  that  one  who  belonged  to  such  a 
pleasure -seeking  and  life-loving  race  would  avail  himself 
of  such  arguments  as  hedonism  is  likely  to  offer  to  its  devo- 
tees; but  Aristotle  abstains  from  any  coarse  contact  with 
the  world  of  sense.  As  Plato  had  made  it  plain  that  he 
did  not  wish  his  ideal  man  confounded  with  the  system 
(Philebus,  21),  so  Aristotle  refuses  to  regard  ethics  in  any 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  149 

anti-hedonic  fashion,  inasmuch  as  moral  virtue  concerns  it- 
self with  pleasure  and  pain — vepl  ^Sova^  koI  Xwas  co-rtv  rj 
rjBuai  dptrrj  (Eth.  Nicom.  Bk.  II,  Ch.  III).  But  as  one 
who  was  a  Hellenist  inwardly,  Aristotle  docs  not  fail  to 
make  the  chief  good  to  consist  in  a  happiness  which  is 
beyond  pleasure  and  pain;  and  which  leaves  nothing  to  be 
done  or  desired;  and  with  an  artistic  freedom  which  touches 
life  lightly,  he  suggests  that  "We  ought  to  feel  in  fact  toward 
pleasures  as  did  the  old  counsellors  toward  Helen"  (Iliad, 
III,  156-157),  an  aesthetic  attitude  commended  by  Burke  and 
Lessing.  The  hedonic  zest  of  Paris  and  the  rigorous  re- 
sistance of  Hector  are  reduced  to  the  golden  mean  of  contem- 
plation wherein  diV^r/o-ts  is  the  ledaing  clement.  (Eth. 
Nicom.  Bk.  11,  Ch.  ix.) 

The  consistent  eudaemonism  of  Aristotle  must  be  dis- 
tinguished, not  cnly  from  hedonism,  but  from  voluntarism, 
with  which   the  master  of  peripatetic  philosophy  seems  to 
identity  himself.     The  opening  chapter  of  the  Nicomachcan 
Ethics  seems  to  place  the  author  among  our  modern  volun- 
tarists;  for,  as  a  peripatetic,  he  contends  for  activity  as  the 
source  of  happiness.     His  definition  states  that  "happiness 
consists  of  a  certain  energy  of  the  soul  according  to  virtue — 
17  €vBaifiovui  i/a;x^s  cvcpyoa  ns  Kat  ipeT^vr'*    (Bk.   I,   Ch.   VII )  ; 
while  the  fuller  account  of  the  subject  makes  the  distinction 
"between  conceiving  of  the  chief  good  as  in  possession  or  as  in 
use;  in  other  words,  as  a  mere  state,  or  as  an  energy."     (lb. 
Ch.  VI ).     The  energistic  view  ever  impresses  Aristotle  as 
the  one  best  calculated  to  express  the  sense  of  eudaemonia. 
Now  this  may  seem  to  draw  the  peripatetic  out  of  classicism 
into  romanticism,  but  the  exercise  of  the  will  is  ever  condi- 
tioned by  the  golden  mean  and  subordinated  to  the  intellect, 
for  the  ancient  idealist  was  in  favor  of  such  work  only  as 
could  be  carried  on   in  moderation   and  with  intelligence. 
Aristotle's  eudaemonism  seems  inconsistent  because  its  op- 
position to  hedonism  in  the  first  book  leads  the  author  to 
emphasize  the  energistic,  while  the  constructive  portion  of 
the  work  in  the  last  one  affirms  with  perfect  balance  that 
active  happiness  consists  in  contemplation,  and  the  earlier 
doctrine   of  rvcpyeta— cv&u^un'ta  gives  way  to  a  compact  idea 
of  dnnprucfi. 


150  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

Finally,  the  peripatetic  conception  of  eudaemonia  reveals 
its  subordination  to  the  intellect  when  it  claims  that  pos- 
session is  better  than  pursuit;  for,  says  he,  "it  is  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  the  employment  of  wisdom  is  more  pleasant 
to  those  who  have  mastered  than  to  those  who  are  yet  seeking 
for  it"  (Bk.  X,  Ch.  vi).  This  energy  of  intellect  is  looked 
upon  as  the  highest  possible  form  of  happiness,  so  that  the 
gods  are  to  be  pictured,  not  as  exercising  moral  vigor,  but 
as  manifesting  contemplative  energy,  to  which  state  of  per- 
fection man  is  advised  to  attain.  "Now  if  from  a  living  being 
you  take  away  action,  what  remains  but  contemplation?  So 
then  the  energy  of  the  gods,  eminent  in  blessedness,  will  be 
one  apt  for  contemplative  speculation;  and  of  all  human 
energies,  that  will  have  the  greatest  capacity  for  happiness 
which  is  nearest  akin  to  this"  (lb.).  Hence  the  view, 
which,  in  the  critical  part  of  the  work,  identified  evScu^ovui 
and  cvcpycui,  now  makes  cvSai/xovux  equivalent  to  OcojpiTKi^; 
and  where  it  had  previously  indicated  "three  lines  of  life," 
comparable  to  the  triple  division  adapted  here  and  there 
from  the  Sankhya  philosophy  to  Schiller,  it  places  above 
the  life  of  sensual  enjoyment  and  public  life,  the  "life  of 
contemplation"  (lb.  Bk.  i,  Ch.  in). 

The  eudaemonism  of  the  modern  Renaissance  was  not 
wholly  different  from  that  of  Athens,  and  Bacon  did  not 
fail  to  comment  with  favor  upon  the  genius  of  Aristotle, 
whose  intellectualism  he  prefers  to  the  works  of  conquest 
carried  on  by  Alexander  (Advancement  of  Learning,  vii  lo 
il).  In  general,  Bacon's  argument  follows  a  course  di- 
rectly the  reverse  of  Aristotle's,  in  that  where  the  ancient 
thinker  had  first  made  concessions  in  favor  of  energism 
only  to  conclude  in  behalf  of  contemplative  energy,  the 
modern  is  ready  to  grant  provisionally  the  advantages  of 
the  purely  intellectual  life,  but  finally  renders  his  verdict  in 
favor  of  the  practical  as  opposed  to  the  theoretical.  It  was  in 
the  application  of  this  utilitarian  test  of  knowledge  that 
Bacon  originated  the  tern>  "culture"  (Advancement  of 
Learning,  ii.  xix,  2j  etc).  While  the  modern,  who  was 
filled  with  the  Hellenism  of  the  Renaissance,  was  not  suffi- 
ciently divorced  from  antiquity  to  make  the  strident  distinc- 
tions peculiar  to  the  Enlightenment,  he  was  led  to  contrast 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  151 

humanity  with  nature,  whereby  he  points  out  that  it  is  the 
vocation  of  man  to  supersede  nature  by  means  of  science. 
Bacon,  who  originally  was  so  inspired  by  the  contemplative 
life  of  antiquity  as  to  quote  Virgil's  maxim, 

Felix,  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas, 
does  not  leave  the  subject  until  he  has  elaborated  a  watch- 
word of  his  own — scientia  est  potentia;  and  by  this  he  indi- 
cates that  while  contemplation  may  bring  felicity,  genuine 
happiness  comes  from  that  culture  which  rules  nature  by 
obeying  her  laws. 

In  portraying  the  dignity  of  knowledge,  Bacon  makes 
use  of  proofs  divine  and  human,  which  at  first  led  him,  in  a 
purely  peripatetic  manner,  to  demonstrate  the  superiority  of 
what,  in  perfect  Aristotelian  phraseology,  he  calls  "the  work 
of  contemplation."  As  Aristotle  had  so  naively  referred  to 
the  contemplative  deities,  so  Bacon  finds  material  for  argu- 
ment in  Biblical  tradition.  The  seventh  day  in  which  God 
rested  and  "contemplated  his  own  works  was  blessed  above 
all  the  days  wherein  he  did  effect  and  accomplish  them," 
while  the  first  acts  of  man  in  paradise  consisted  in  viewing 
and  naming  God's  creatures.  So  the  offering  of  Abel,  who 
led  the  contemplative  life  of  the  shepherd,  was  more  ac- 
ceptable than  that  of  Cain  the  husbandman.  Moses  was 
famed  for  Egyptian  learning.  Job  for  natural  philosophy, 
and  Solomon  for  wisdom,  while  the  Saviour  Himself  first 
showed  His  power  by  subduing  the  doctors  of  the  law,  before 
He  performed  His  miracles  in  nature  (Adv.  of  Learning, 
VI ).  On  the  human  side,  mythology  shows  how  superior 
over  rulers  and  lawgivers  were  the  inventors  of  new  arts 
and  sciences,  who  were  Gods  where  the  others  were  demi- 
Gods.  In  human  history,  likewise,  it  appears  that,  in  the 
instances  of  Socrates  and  Xenophon,  Aristotle  and  Alex- 
ander, Cicero  and  Caesar,  learning  has  an  influence  both  in 
times  of  war  and  peace  (lb.  vii). 

Bacon's  later  work,  Novum  Organum,  renders  the  work 
of  conquest  superior  to  that  of  contemplation,  and  hence  it 
becomes  a  mere  characteristic  modern  production.  The 
ruling  ideal  is  that  of  culture,  which  term  had  already  been 
introduced  in  his  "globe  of  the  intellectual  world" — 
Advancement    of    Learning    (Bk.     11.^     xxii) ;     but     the 


152  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

Novum  Organum  inquires  concerning  the  utility  of  knowl- 
edge, which  is  found  to  consist  in  the  subjugation  of  nature 
by  science.  With  such  a  purpose,  science  no  longer  consists 
in  furnishing  individuals  with  weapons  for  their  warfare 
one  with  another,  but  equips  humanity  in  its  oneness  for  its 
intellectual  conflict  with  nature.  For  this  reason,  the  idea 
of  utility  must  be  understood  eudaemonistically,  not  hedonic- 
ally,  as  applying  to  the  total  interests  of  life,  not  the  par- 
ticular ones.  Man's  calling  consists  in  ruling  nature,  first, 
by  discovering  her  laws;  then,  by  obeying  them;  hence,  in 
Bacon's  plan,  man  really  returns  to  nature  although  in  no 
such  irrational  manner  as  Rousseau  in  his  rhapsodies  had 
pointed  out.  Immediacy  connects  itself  with  utility,  and 
the  work  of  contemplation  yields  to  the  work  of  conquest. 

4 — ^THE    CONTENT    OF    HAPPINESS    IN    ACTIVITY 

The  way  for  the  positive  interpretation  of  eudaemonia 
had  already  been  prepared  by  Aristotle,  who  found  happi- 
ness to  consist  in  energy;  by  Bacon,  who  subordinated  knowl- 
edge to  its  practical  culture  or  natural  forces;  by  Rousseau, 
who  was  opposed  to  pure  art  and  science  in  their  antipathy  to 
the  life  of  immediate  activity.  While  the  question  is  still 
one  which  concerns  immediacy  of  contact  with  nature,  the 
particular  way  of  establishing  it  now  comes  under  discus- 
sion, and  the  respective  claims  of  intellect  and  will  must  be 
considered.  Is  man  happy  when  he  thinks  correctly,  or 
when  he  acts  consistently?  From  the  dawn  of  his  culture, 
the  Aryan  has  been  in  doubt  about  his  intellectualism,  al- 
though he  has  steadily  maintained  that  the  mental  process 
is  sufficient  to  guide  man  to  his  humanity  and  give  him 
happiness.  In  the  Bhagavad-Gita,  which  combines  the 
theory  of  Sankhya-speculation  with  the  theory  of  Yoga- 
practice,  the  conflict  between  knowing  and  doing  is  clearly 
seen.  Here  it  is  said,  **As  a  kindled  fire  makes  its  fuel  into 
ashes,  so  the  fire  of  knowledge  makes  into  ashes  all  works'* 
(Ch.  IV )  ;  there  it  is  suggested  that  "Without  undertaking 
works  no  man  may  possess  worklessness"  (Ch.  in).  Of  the 
tw^o,  the  Yoga  method  of  work  seems  more  eudaemonistic. 
To-day  the  claims  of  the  will  are  stronger  because  of  the 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  153 

entrance  of  Semitism  into  the  problem  of  life. 

In  this  way  has  arisen  a  eudaemonistic  utilitarianism 
which  exalts  action  for  the  sake  of  the  worker,  not  the  work. 
It  is  culture  in  the  volitional  form  of  discipline,  made  more 
pertinent  by  the  skepticism  which  has  ever  hovered  over 
our  modern  thought.  Perhaps  the  life  of  intellectual  con- 
templation were  better  in  itself,  but  with  the  failure  or  reason 
to  reach  reality,  and  with  a  chasm  created  between  thought 
and  thing,  the  will  is  appealed  to  by  the  human  subject  who 
sees  no  other  way  to  realize  his  humanity.  Culture  involves 
a  certain  form  of  mental  courage  that  refuses  the  myrrh  and 
wine  with  which  the  fatigue  of  the  will  would  stupefy  man ; 
hence  the  maxim,  sapere  aude.  Where  the  theory  of  knowl- 
edge wonders  whether  man  can  know,  the  theory  of  culture 
inquires  whether  he  really  wants  to  know.  Culture  involves 
a  conflict  with  nature  and  the  elaboration  of  an  independent 
spiritual  order;  hence  man  hesitates  to  abandon  the  con- 
venient natural  order  and  adjust  his  being  to  such  an  unreal 
thing  as  the  world  of  humanity.  The  intimate  system  of 
things  may  not  satisfy  spiritual  longing  or  wholly  contain 
humanity  in  its  endless  striving,  but  it  affords  scope  for  or- 
dinary human  endeavor  and  presents  opportunity  for  that 
which  man  needs — immediate  activity. 

Before  Bacon's  theory  of  culture  had  been  begun,  the 
skepticism  of  Montaigne  had  yielded  a  practical  maxim  of 
life  which,  if  it  did  not  oppose  an  intellectualistic  form  of  con- 
duct, set  up  in  resolute  fashion  the  ideal  of  work.  Man  was 
meant  for  labor — **nou5  sommes  nayr  pour  agir' — con- 
cludes the  skeptic,  who  further  expresses  the  wish  that 
death  may  find  him  in  the  garden  planting  his  cabbages — 
je  veux  quon  agisse  et  quon  alonge  les  offices  de  la  vie,  taut 
quon  peult;  et  que  la  mort  me  treuve  plantant  mes  choulx, 
mais  non  chalant  d*elle,  et  encore  plus  de  mon  jardin  im- 
parfaict  (Essais,  I.,  XIX ).  Such  was  hardly  the  expected 
conclusion  on  the  part  of  one  who,  active  in  the  midst  of 
the  Renaissance,  could  hardly  be  satisfied  with  science  as  it 
had  thus  far  perfected  itself;  and  the  watch-word  is  more 
comprehensible  as  a  general  confession  of  faith  in  salvation  by 
practical  works.  At  a  later  period,  when  the  Enlightenment 
had  begun  to  exhaust  the  possibilities  of  the  understanding, 


154  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

Voltaire's  parallel  comment  upon  the  life  of  labor  as  op- 
posed to  the  life  of  learning  is  more  convincingly  expressed 
in  connection  with  the  problem  of  optimism,  yet  it  must  be 
observed  that  his  language  agrees  almost  verbally  with  his 
skeptical  predecessor. 

Voltaire  contrasts  the  ideal  of  immediacy  with  that  of 
scientific  separation  from  nature,  just  as  he  institutes  a 
comparison  between  the  intellect  and  will,  as  functions  whose 
exercise  is  calculated  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  heart. 
His  conclusion  is  drawn  against  culture,  and  his  optimism  is 
the  eudaemonia  of  occupying  labor  which  leaves  no  room 
for  regret.  Such  was  the  burden  of  "Candide,"  in  whose 
final  paragraphs  it  is  pointed  out  how  man  was  put  in  the 
Garden  of  Eden  in  order  that  he  might  work,  although 
Voltaire  does  not  observe,  with  Bacon,  that  this  original 
occupation  was  the  "work  of  contemplation."  The  advice 
which  is  given  in  this  connection  is  both  pessimistic  and 
optimistic,  for  it  decides  against  reason  before  it  approves 
of  the  will  as  a  source  of  happiness.  To  make  life  bearable 
one  must  work  without  thinking — '' travaillons  sans  raissoner: 
c'est  le  seul  moyens  dc  rendre  la  vie  supportable^'  Yet  this 
does  not  remove  all  possibility  of  happiness,  inasmuch  as  the 
life  of  labor  is  not  without  reward;  hence  the  injunction 
to  cultivate  the  garden — "//  faut  cultiver  notre  jardin/' 
Such  an  ideal  is  characteristic  of  our  modern  eudaemonism, 
which  distrusts  all  activity  save  that  of  a  practical  nature. 

A  similar  faith  in  immediacy  and  the  practical  application 
of  it  is  instilled  by  Goethe's  ideal  histories  of  Faust  and 
Wilhelm  Meister.  Thus  was  developed  a  literary  utili- 
tarianism so  foreign  to  the  traditional  theories  of  British 
moralists  that  its  importance  in  the  history  of  ethics  has 
been  overlooked.  The  genial  paganism  of  Goethe  made  it 
impossible  for  him  to  accept  Kant's  categorical  imperative, 
as  Schiller  sought  to  do,  just  as  it  led  him  to  delineate  a 
character  well-balanced  and  of  satisfaction  to  himself.  In 
the  two-fold  instance  of  Faust  and  Wilhelm  Meister,  the 
poet  endeavors  to  show  how  necessary  it  is  to  devote  one's 
self  to  some  task  of  immediate  value  to  mankind;  a  truth 
which  applies  to  the  average  man  of  the  novel  and  the 
genius  of  the  poem.     Both  heroes  seek  satisfaction  in  self- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  155 

love  and  both  works  have  their  thoroughgoing  egoistic  oor- 

vZh  'f  wt  r ^^"'^'  ^''^  ^^^"^^-  wherlnTe  gilded 
rif.  .^^^^'^"^  '"'"'  '^  ^^j^^^^^^'  P^^^^^'^^  work,  while 
n.^n  ^^  '  consummates  his  career  by  the  strange  occu- 
pation of  drammg  a  swamp  to  make  a  town  more  habitable. 

In  Jut  ^^'"P^''.^"j  '^'  vagueness  and  subjectivity  of  mere 
intellectualism  yields  to  precise  objective  doing,  so  that  the 
deed    not  the  thought,  is  man's  salvation.     The  second  par 

JJT!  u""  '^'  "^""'P^^'  ^^  '^'  ^''^  to  Helen  of  Troy 
and  that  with  no  suggestion  of  mesalliance;  it  was  an  incident 

cla Jc  for' ?7  ^7  ^"^^'i^  ''  ''  ''  -^'^^  —tic  and 
classic    forms    of   culture.      Faust    itself    does    add    to    the 

He  lenic  sense  of  immediacy  and  limitation  the  modern  ideal 
of  labor,  but  m  such  a  way  as  to  make  for  realism  rather 
than  romanticism  Schlegel  overloked  the  utilitarian  trend 
of  Meister  for  the  sake  of  the  free  creativeness  otherwise 
displayed  m  the  romance  (Ju.end  Schriften.  Bd.  11.  S.T6T 
et  bcq.),  a  tendency  carried  out  in  the  author's  own  work! 
Lucinde  On  the  other  hand,  Novalis'  opposition  tithe 
Meister-ideal  appears  in  ''Heinrich  von  Ofterdingen,''  In- 
other  search  for  the  b  ue  flower,  a  work  which  Ls  as^de 
dje   Ideal   of  an   immediate   for   that   of  a   remote   interest! 

£t  rJaHstr"''""   '"   '^"'   ""'^^^^   '^'^'   "^^   --^"tL; 
Such   views   have   their   value,   and   in   the   face   of   the 

some  assent.     The  individual  is  not  pilloried  upon  an  ideal 
but    IS   allowed    the    free    development   of   his   powers   as   a 

TTa  u^''""'''.-  ^'''  '"^^''"^^^  ^''  centralized  and  Thus 
checked  by  being  directed  toward  a  practical  goal  the  worth 
ot  which  in  Its  immediacy  cannot  be  denied.  The  form  of 
mordity  engendered  is  the  positive  one,  which  makes  room 
for  man  gua  man,  and  does  not  make  him  sacrifice  himself  to 

wi  h  himself.  So  far  as  content  is  concerned,  this  phase  of 
utilitarianism,  whence  the  poet  flees  for  moral  exercise  in 
the  sunshine  of  the  garden,  is  neither  egoistic  nor  altruistic 
neither  rigoristic  nor  hedonic  The  hero  works  imperson: 
ally,  inasmuch  as  he  has  relinquished  thought  and  self- 
scrutiny,  and  cultivates  the  garden.     Man  was  put  into  the 


156  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

world  to  dress  the  garden  and  his  happiness  consisted  in 
this  pleasant  occupation;  but  behold  the  curse  of  humanity 
when  this  same  labor  is  carried  on  fuori  le  mura.  Here  man 
toils  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow  amid  thorn  and  thistle,  and 
with  tears  eats  the  bread  of  sorrows.  He  is  in  the  world, 
not  the  garden;  immediacy  has  not  for  him  the  benefits  his 
thought  has  imagined;  it  will  be  fortunate  for  him  if  he 
sees  one  whom  he  supposes  to  be  the  Gardener. 

Upon  the  psychological  side,  the  choice  in  favor  of  con- 
quest as  opposed  to  contemplation  involves  the  comparison 
between  will  and  intellect.  This  was  set  up  in  Christendom 
by  Augustine,  who  in  aligning  the  problem  of  freedom, 
separates  the  will  from  the  totality  of  inner  consciousness 
(Civ.  Dei,  xiv,  6).  Scholasticism,  with  the  conflict  be- 
tween Dominican  and  Franciscan,  inquired  concerning  the 
superiority  of  intellect  and  will,  and  Duns  Scotus  established 
voluntarism  when  he  advocated  the  supremacy  of  will — 
voluntas  superior  est  intellectu.  The  attack  upon  man's 
spiritual  unity  was  thus  carried  on  in  the  light  of  the  sensory 
and  motor  functions  of  the  organism ;  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
several  forms  of  dualism  set  up  by  Kant  that  between 
speculative  and  practical  reason  makes  the  distinction  all  the 
more  thoroughgoing,  just  as  it  places  Kant  among  the  volun- 
tarists.  What  is  the  result?  Two  types  of  life  are  estab- 
lished; one  which  emphasizes  the  contemplative  possession 
of  the  world  in  its  ultimate  aspect;  the  other  which  advises 
the  practical  pursuit  of  reality  by  way  of  conquest.  The 
hero  is  either  homo  sapiens  or  homo  faciens,  and  life  consists 
either  of  proof, — quod  erat  demontrandum — or  of  perform- 
ance— quod  erat  faciendam.  Thus  the  modern  pagan  clings 
to  the  Hellenic  ideal  only  upon  the  side  of  immediacy;  the 
ideal  of  conative  activity  is  his  own. 

5 — NATURISTIC    OPTIMISM 

Such  is  the  result  of  the  second  form  of  naturism;  it 
develops  a  eudaemonism  which  limits  activity  to  the  natural 
world  of  Immediacy,  and  finally  turns  to  the  will  with  its 
possibilities  of  conquest.  In  the  midst  of  this  doctrine  of 
life,  the  supremacy  of  nature  is  never  lost  sight  of;  and  the 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  157 

reason   why   contemplation    does   not   involve   an    unlimited 
range  is  found  m  the  feeling  that  happiness  can  come  only 
as  man  remams  within  the  domain  of  a  finished  order  of 
things  such  as  nature  presents.     The  will,  which  is  limited 
by  Itself  alone,  is  similarly  reduced  to  acceptable  proportions 
by   the   attention   which    is   paid    to    immediate   occupation. 
Under  such  auspices  man  is  permitted  to  enjoy  himself  in 
the   consciousness  of   immediate   reality   and   with   the   con- 
victK)n  that  life  is  sufficient;  he  is  not  urged  to  carry  on  a 
conflict  with  nature  for  the  sake  of  spiritual  humanity,  but 
IS  advised  to  lose  his  endless  selfhood  in  immediate  world- 
hood      Humanity  exists  and  operates,  not  as  something  in- 
ward   and    endless,    but    as   a    favored    element    in    the    all- 
embracing  natural  order.     Man  is  thus  taught  to  live  with- 
out ideals  and  to  systematize  his  ethics  apart  from  categories. 
In  antiquity,  with  its  formal  and  plastic  modes  of  conducting 
human  life,  It  was  a  consistent  attitude;  within  the  borders 
ot  Christendom,  where  an  independent  humanity  carries  on 
Its  operations  with  outer  striving  and  inner  suffering,  it  is 
discordant.     The  atmosphere  of  this  thinking  is  a  healthy 
optimism,   the  constant   accompaniment  of   hedonism;   since 
It  does  not  contrast  nature  with  spirit  it  is  not  likely  to  dis- 
cover  any   imperfection   in   the   world.      Culture   completes 
nature;  the  purely  human  demand  for  ideals  will  not  abide 
by  any  calculating  or  contemplating  utilitarianism  and  the 
self-centered  obvious  argument  of  and  from  naturism  is  not 
wholly  convincing.    To  account  for,  in  theory,  and  satisfy  in 
the  ideal,  great  trains  of  free  speculation  and  vast  projects 
of  spiritual  endeavor,  is  a  task  far  beyond  the  range  of  the 
utilitarian  program ;  and  it  is  only  as  we  observe  the  excess 
of  nature   in   man,   which   carries   him   onward   toward   an 
independent  humanity,  that  we  can  be  said  to  account  for 
him.     The  vast  objective  method  of  the  antique  epic  must 
receive  something  complementary  from  the  subjective  Ivric 
with  Its  greater  psychological  profundity;  and  a  classic  art' 
which  assumes  that  its  task  is  only  one  of  imitation,  cannot 
prevent  the  dawning  of  a  newer  view  which  treats  nature, 
not   mimetically   alone,   but   in   symbolic   fashion.      Modern 
culture    organizes    humanity,    as    modern    science    arranges 
nature.  ^ 


158  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

Literary  utilitarianism  of  the  Shakespeare-Goethe  type 
appears  more  and  more  hopeless  as  we  measure  it  according 
to  humanity.  Nature  cannot  contain  man's  being  or  satisfy 
his  will,  and  the  function  of  art  in  humanity  shows  how 
necessary  are  the  supersensible  and  extra-useful.  Hedonic 
utilities  may  content  the  man  of  nature,  whether  in  his  past 
or  present  situation,  but  where  man's  artistic  education  has 
progressed  toward  the  ideal  of  humanity,  he  cultivates  his 
garden,  not  for  the  sake  of  a  stupefying  toil,  but  because  he  in 
his  culture  proposes  to  complete  nature.  We  cultivate  the 
garden,  not  only  for  the  sake  of  the  useful  cabbage,  as 
Montaigne  suggested,  but  in  order  to  produce  the  useless 
blue  flower  of  a  romantic  Novalis.  Thus  realism  and  roman- 
ticism in  their  mutual  conflict  point  out  the  way  to  a  higher 
and  more  consistent  view  of  humanity's  relation  to  man. 
Man  cannot  return  to  nature,  but  must  go  forward  to 
humanity;  he  cannot  be  born  again  as  a  pagan,  but  must 
take  his  critical  stand  in  Christendom.  Poetical  ideals  should 
find  no  special  solace  in  paganism ;  the  affected  return  to 
the  torsos  of  classicism  is  hopeless,  in  an  age  like  ours,  which 
no  longer  tolerates  the  antique  theory  that  art,  whose  essence 
is  imitation,  should  likewise  serve  the  end  of  utility. 

Antipathy  to  all  forms  of  use,  whether  inner  or  outer, 
reveals  the  anti-utilitarian  spirit  of  modern  aesthetics. 
While  our  moderns,  like  Kant  and  Schopenhauer,  seem  to 
cling  to  the  moralistic  side  of  aesthetics,  which,  in  an  older 
age,  led  Plato  to  condemn  the  drama  and  suffered  Aristotle 
to  use  it  as  a  means  of  purifying  the  soul,  they  do  not  yield 
the  point  that  beauty  should  further  any  human  interest. 
Intuitive,  as  though  even  the  labor  of  thinking  were  in- 
artistic, and  contemplative  to  the  degree  of  quiescence,  our 
own  theory  of  taste  demands  a  thorough  severance  of  beauty 
from  utility.  On  its  creative  side,  modern  aesthetics  seeks 
to  avoid  any  taint  of  ignoble  labor  by  pointing  out  that 
art  arose  in  the  form  of  play,  and  is  continued  for  evermore 
in  the  same  spirit — the  Spieltrieb  of  Schiller.  The  freedom 
of  humanity  demands  some  such  exalted  view,  and  as  the 
contemplation  of  beauty  raises  man  above  nature  and  leads 
him  to  forget  himself  as  creature  of  the  world,  so  the  crea- 
tion of  beauty  is  carried  on  in  the  spirit  of  devotion  to  a 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  159 

task  infinitely  superior  to  that  of  useful  labor.  The  artist 
is  not  an  artisan;  which  of  the  two  shall  give  us  the  ideal 
of  life? 

Labor  is  not  the  end  of  life,  but  the  means;  we  work  that 
we  may  enjoy  leisure.  Man  is  not  man  when  he  works; 
sometimes  his  temperament  is  best  seen  in  his  pastimes. 
Utilitarianism  is  a  theory  which  expresses  the  modern  as 
industrialist  but  not  the  modern  as  romanticist,  and  between 
these  two  tendencies  there  is  a  vast  difference.  The  ancient, 
with  his  plastic  view  of  the  world,  felt  the  oppression  of  no 
such  contrast,  but  was  privileged  to  work  and  play  together; 
but  the  modern,  who  feels  the  dignity  of  the  labor  in  which 
as  a  system  he  participates,  cannot  remove  the  suspicion  that 
the  life  of  industry  is  not  all  there  is  to  his  human  vocation. 
Hence  his  subjective  romantic  culture,  his  breach  with  his 
own  life,  which,  as  at  the  opening  of  the  19th  century,  wit- 
nessed the  supremacy  of  poetry  over  science,  a  condition 
^yhich  to-day  is  exactly  reversed.  The  powers  of  modern 
life  might  reproach  us  in  the  same  way  that  the  symbolic 
"Balls  of  Wool"  reprove  Peer  Gynt: 

"We  should  have  soared  upward 
Like  clangorous  voices, 
And  here  we  must  trundle 
As  gray  woolen  thread-balls"  (Act  v,  Sc.  vi). 

In  its  ideals  of  immediacy  and  activity,  eudaemonism 
fails  to  appreciate  the  possibilities  of  spiritual  life  as  these 
appear  in  human  culture,  artistic  and  scientific,  ethical  and 
religious.  Both  Aristotle  and  Bacon  exalt  contemplation 
above  conquest  and  thus  seem  to  postulate  the  emancipation 
of  humanity  from  nature,  but  their  views  of  spiritual  life 
are  such  that  man  is  never  suffered  to  lose  sight  of  the 
immediate,  in  whose  possession  his  happiness  is  supposed  to 
consist.  The  same  failure  reappears  in  Voltaire  and  Goethe, 
who  were  fully  aware  of  the  ideal  in  human  existence  but 
who  could  not  trust  man's  culture  with  his  happiness;  hence 
their  common  injunction  to  work  in  the  garden  of  immediate 
benefit.  Eudaemonism  limits  the  field  of  human  activity, 
fearing  that  man  may  be  lured  by  his  dreams  of  spiritual 
life,  and  however  consistent  its  plan  of  life  may  seem, 
it  fails  to  account  for  the  ideal  activity  of  humanity. 


VI 


RESULT  OF  NATURISM— THE  VALUE  OF  LIFE 

I — THE  RANGE  OF  NATURISM 

The  general  plan  of  life  in  whose  light  our  discussion 
has  been  carried  on,  puts  us  in  a  position  where  we  are 
privileged  neither  to  affirm  nor  deny  the  ethics  of  naturism. 
Moral  life  had  to  have  a  beginning  and  there  was  no  place 
for  this  but  in  nature  which  has  produced  man  and  fitted  him 
out  with  instincts  and  consciousness.  Yet  the  attitude  of 
humanity  toward  nature,  as  shown  in  art  and  religion,  logic 
and  ethics,  was  not  such  as  to  suggest  that  it  had  any  inten- 
tion of  remaining  there,  so  that  the  world  of  sense  was  and 
was  not  the  home  of  humanity.  From  this  passing  contact 
of  mankind  with  nature  arose  certain  problems  of  life  which, 
when  discussed  in  a  narrow  hedonic  fashion,  could  not  be 
presented  adequately,  still  less  brought  to  solution.  When  it 
is  seen  that,  however  natural  the  hedonic  experience  of  life 
was,  humanity  was  bent  upon  some  more  remote  realization, 
the  problems  of  the  naturistic  view  will  tend  to  merge  them- 
selves into  the  one  problem  of  living,  which  only  life  itself 
can  solve.  In  particular,  these  problems  may  be  reviewed  and 
readjusted  according  to  the  humanistic  view,  as  follows:  (i) 
The  hedonic  paradox  of  pleasure  and  the  conflict  between 
feeling  and  life,  whereby  there  arises  a  problem  which 
hedonism  itself  cannot  solve.  (2)  The  endlessness  of  desire 
whose  spontaneity  traces  back  to  a  source  deeper  than  the 
love  of  pleasure.  (3)  The  passive  adjustment  of  man  to 
nature  by  means  of  contemplation.  (4)  The  active  relation 
of  man  to  the  world  in  the  ideal  of  conquest. 

Of  these  four,  there  will  appear  to  be  two  general 
moods — of  passivity  and  activity — where  feeling  and  con- 
templative sentiment  leave  man  in  a  receptive  attitude; 
and   where,  again,   desire   and   active  conquest   arouse   man 

160 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  161 

with  the  ambition  to  subdue  nature  to  his  own  being.  These 
two  tendencies  involve  characteristic  problems.  In  the  midst 
of  hedonic  eudaemonia,  the  ceaseless  striving  of  humanity 
constantly  appears  as  that  substantial  process  which  explains 
the  contingent  relations  of  passive  feeling  and  active  desire. 
It  is  only  in  a  false  psychology  and  a  fallacious  logic  that 
nature  is  suffered  to  envelop  man  and  stifle  his  human  free- 
dom. Nature  itself,  naively  intuited  by  the  man  of  primitive 
or  of  present  time,  can  only  serve  the  needs  of  a  striving 
humanity;  but,  when  artificially  drawn  from  its  proper 
sphere  and  sharply  affirmed  by  hedonism  or  complacently 
assumed  by  eudaemonism,  its  significance  for  man  is  lost 
and  its  influence  dissipated.  The  unity  of  nature  and  the 
integrity  of  mankind  are  injured  by  a  system  which  places 
them  competitively  on  the  same  horizontal  level,  instead  of 
adjusting  them  vertically  by  way  of  subordinating  the  out- 
wardly sensuous  to  the  inwardly  spiritual.  In  the  totality 
of  the  world,  nature  is  something  more  than  the  source  of 
hedonic  gratification  or  the  garden  of  eudaemonistic  activity. 
It  is  the  place  where  humanity  perfects  itself  in  a  genuine 
spiritual  fashion  and  the  purpose  of  the  natural  order  can 
hardly  be  accounted  for  on  any  such  narrow  basis  of  present 
gratification  or  immediate  well-being. 

The  world  of  nature  in  its  wholeness  belongs  to  man,  but 
perfect  naturism  is  possible  to  him  only  when  he  is  in  such 
possession  of  himself  as  to  distinguish  between  his  own  inner 
nature  and  the  outer  being  of  the  world.  Both  hedonism 
and  eudaemonism  are  incapable  of  comprehending  naturism, 
since  they  concern  themselves  with  the  phenomenal  order  and 
ignore  the  underlying  reality  of  the  world  beneath  time  and 
space.  Spiritual  religion  in  its  warfare  upon  the  world  tends 
to  dignify  the  natural  order  even  when  the  attitude  toward 
it  is  purely  negative.  Christianity  deems  the  gaining  of  the 
world-whole  a  valueless  accomplishment  and  directs  man  to 
cultivate  the  soul-life,  while  Buddhism  seeks  to  deliver  man 
from  the  illusory  world  of  Sansara  by  means  of  enlighten- 
ment. These  religious  programs  involve  a  world-conscious- 
ness superior  to  all  forms  of  hedonism,  just  as  they  indicate 
that  the  possession  of  the  world  is  no  simple  problem  of 
pleasure    and    happiness.      Negative    naturism    thus    stands 


i62  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


nearer  the  meaning  and  tendency  of  man's  life  in  the  world 
than    the    positive    naturism    which    naively   assumes   man's 
ability  to  realize  the  world  immediately.     Hedonic  naturism 
fails  to  account  for  both  nature  and  humanity,   for  in  the 
serious   realization   of   man's   position    in   the   universe   it   is 
folly  to  suggest  that  we  have  in  man  a  sensitive  creature  who 
can    be   satisfied    by    nature    in    its   phenomenal    immediacy. 
Neither  nature  nor  humanity  can  be  represented  by  pleasure, 
for  the  link  connecting  them  is  stronger  than  the  love  of 
eudaemonia.     Positive  naturism  which  asserts  the  value  of 
immediacy  is  a  failure;  negative  naturism,  in  the   form  of 
characterstic  ethics,  will  be   found   to  ignore   the  world  of 
reality  in  its  desire  to  negate  the  life  of  pleasure.    Only  in  a 
thoroughly  humanistic  view  does  it  become  possible  to  con- 
template the  inner  nature  of  the  world,  whose  phenomenal 
forms  were  affirmed  and  denied  by  eudaemonism  and  rigorism 
respectively.     Even  though  the  life  of  naturism  be  lost  to 
man  it  is  still  possible  for  man  to  adjust  himself  to  the  world, 
and  that  in  a  manner  superior  to  the  schemes  of  hedonism 
and  intuitionism. 


2 — THE  WORTH    OF   LIFE 

However  eccentric  the  naturistic  view  of  life  may  be,  ft  is 
possessed  of  sufficient  consistency  to  demonstrate  the  value  of 
life  and  the  sense  of  human  striving.  The  feeling  of  worth 
is  the  permanent  possession  of  humanity  acquired  in  con- 
nection with  the  magnificent  order  of  nature  in  which  it 
grew  up.  It  is  true  that  the  naturistic  view  as  such  does  not 
evince  the  unity  of  life  in  the  totality  of  the  world,  but  it 
suggests  how  commanding  is  man's  position  in  the  universe 
while  it  invests  his  life  with  an  ineradicable  sense  of  value. 
The  hedonic  side  of  man's  nature  presents  the  problem  of 
value  as  no  other  view  of  life  is  able  to  do.  Man's  inability 
to  attain  to  rectitude  and  to  perform  duty,  serious  problems 
though  they  may  be,  do  not  cause  him  to  wonder  concerning 
the  meaning  of  his  life ;  for  this  is  a  question  which  arises  in 
connection  with  defeated  desire  and  a  frustrated  search  for 
well-being  whereby  man  begins  to  wonder  whether  in  its 
inability  to  satisfy  him  life  is  worth  living.    The  life-problem 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  163 
thus  assumes  a  hedonic  form  and  introduces  the  whole  ques- 

sTed  Jf  ""l''-^"^  T^'^  ^^  ^  ^^'"^P^^  ^^"^^  «^  pleasure,  man 
IS  led  to  look  into  the  mysteries  of  his  being.     Pain  is  more 

significant  than  remorse,  evil  is  more  suggestive  thL  the 
bad.  The  suspicion  that  the  earth  is  not  ready  for  man  is 
more  significant  than  the  parallel  truth  that  he  is  not  fit 
tor  life,  and  the  pain  that  he  suflFers  is  more  significant  than 
he  wrong  that  he  does.  Pain  has  thus  an  educative  value 
^r  by  means  of  suggestions  man  is  led  to  examine  into  the 
mystery  of  his  earth-life. 
,      Pleasure  has  about  it  somewhat  of  the  same  speculative 

fe  ^n^;"^  '  "^'"u"  ^'^""''^  ^"^^'^  ^^  "^^y  draw  some  in- 
ference concerning  the  worth  of  life.     Hedonism  reveals  to 

b^L'in^'n"^'^  of  interest  whereby  he  may  interpret  his 
iS  '"."^;7^-  /^\  the  sake  of  argument  eliminate  the 
living  principles  of  hedonism  and  calculate  the  result  where 
^^.J'^'a  ""f^   ^7;cience   and    duty   to   guide   him.      Such 

activity,  for  they  are  negative  and  act  as  detents  in  man's 
conduct.     Man  does  not  live  and  act  for  the  sake  oTap! 
proval  or  from  any  sense  of  obligation,  but  because  life  is 
desirable   in   itself.      Pleasure  binds  man   to  life  in  a  way 
that   virtue    does   not,    while    desire    inspires   him   with    an 
intensity  unknown  to  duty.     It  is  hedonism,  therefore,  that 
arou^s  man  to  a  ^nse  of  his  humanity,  and  with  all  our 
talk  about  ideals  of  life  it  must  be  admitted  that  we  turn 
to  nature  with  its  sense  of  desire  when  we  are  in  quest  of 
the  life  that  we  would  idealize.     Hedonic  elements  contri- 
bute  to  life  m  no  indirect  fashion ;  they  stimulate  the  instincts 
and    keep   man   away   from   the   nihilistic   idea   that   life   is 
wrong      So  close  is  the  connection  between  pleasure-giving 
and  life-preservmg  activities  that  hedonism  serves  humanity 
by  relating  ,t  consciously  to  its  home  in   nature.     By  he- 
donism  all  life-destroying  ideals  are  opposed,  for  a  system 
which   seeks   to  justify   and    further   actual    existence   is   of 
value  in  opposing  a  contrary  one  which  had  no  tast»  for 
lire. 

While  hedonism  has  no  sense  of  human  selfhood  and 
worldhood.  It  evinces  an  instinctive  connection  between  the 
human  creature  and  his  natural  habitat,  and  lays  down  the 


i64  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

law  of  living.  Among  the  arguments  for  and  against  life, 
there  ever  stands  out  the  general  claim  that  nature  has 
upon  its  creature,  man,  and  after  all  else  has  been  said,  there 
remains  the  great  fact  that  we  live.  In  Hamlet,  Shake- 
speare presents  a  simple  argument  that,  however,  is  not  at 
all  convincing.  Our  life  is  an  evil  and  it  were  well  for 
us  if  we  could  escape  from  its  fate,  but  the  future  with  its 
dreamy  uncertainty  may  be  worse  still,  so  that,  as  a  hedonist, 
Hamlet  decides  in  favor  of  life.  Schopenhauer,  who  came 
to  the  same  conclusion,  avails  himself  of  arguments  quite 
the  contrary,  although  he  proceeds  from  the  same  principle 
of  evil  in  the  world.  Schopenhauer's  pessimism,  however, 
prepares  him  for  this  condition  of  things  and  he  justly  con- 
cludes in  favor  of  life.  Expressed  formally,  his  argument 
might  be  put  as  follows:  Suffering  is  essential  to  life;  man 
was  meant  to  suffer ;  therefore,  man  should  live.  By  re- 
nunciation, or  denial  of  the  will  to  live,  and  not  by  suicide, 
man  should  accept  suffering  as  something  necessary  to  his 
being  {Welt  als  JVille  u.  Vorstellung  §  69).  Yet,  without 
such  rafinnements,  we  may  decide  in  favor  of  life;  inasmuch 
as  nature  has  such  a  hold  upon  her  creatures,  it  is  folly  for 
man  to  talk  of  ending  his  existence.  Man  was  meant  for 
life,  and  while  he  fails  in  both  his  animality  and  his  spirit- 
uality, he  is  still  human  and  should  think  only  of  living. 
De  vita  non  est  disputandum. 

Hedonism  does  not  content  itself  with  justifying  the 
mere  fact  of  life,  but  contends  in  favor  of  its  desirability. 
There  may  be  a  sense  of  duty  within  life,  but  life  itself  is 
not  so  much  a  duty  as  a  desire.  Philosophy  has  not  suc- 
ceeded in  showing  why  being  exists,  and  the  aesthetical  and 
ethical  grounds  proposed  do  not  warrant  us  in  assuming  that 
we  know  the  purpose  of  reality.  Yet,  within  the  domain 
of  this  vast  metaphysical  question,  it  is  still  possible  to  defend 
being  upon  the  basis  of  desirability.  Man  is  not  prepared 
to  will  the  extinction  of  all  beings  including  himself,  and 
just  as  it  is  impossible  for  speculative  doubt  to  rid  the 
thinker  of  such  ideas  as  self,  world,  and  God,  so  it  is 
equally  impossible  for  practical  skepticism  to  choose  in  favor 
of  non-existence.  Both  intellect  and  will  adhere  to  the 
world  in  such  a  way  that  thinking  and  living  must  go  on. 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  165 

Naturism  comes  to  the  rescue  of  humanity  by  indicating  the 
mherent  value  of  life  in  itself,  and  while  the  hedonic  and 
cudaemonistic  methods  of  justifying  life  are  wholly  inade- 
quate, the  general  truth  of  hedonism  remains.  No  matter 
how  convmcmg  the  arguments  for  renunciation  may  ap- 
pear to  be,  no  matter  how  complete  the  reasoning  of  pes- 
simism, life  must  be  a  benefit,  and  he  who  concludes  against 
It  and  seeks  to  negate  it  must  admit  that  it  possesses  value  if 
only  as  an  opportunity  for  denial  on  the  part  of  man.  In  the 
midst  of  the  metaphysical  and  moral  service  of  naturism  it 
must  be  admitted  that  the  plan  proposed  for  man  is  not 
adequate,  while  the  reasons  given  for  life  are  not  sufficient. 
Having  seen  what  naturism  is  and  does,  it  may  be  well  to 
evaluate  its  principles  in  the  light  of  our  inwardly-striving 
humanity. 

3— THE  STRIVING  OF  HUMANITY  BEYOND  NATURE 

The  course  of  human  life  in  the  world  is  calculated  to 
lead  man  beyond  nature  into  forms  of  existence  whose  he- 
dome  value  may  easily  be  questioned.     Yet  so  determined  is 
the  effort  of  man  to  assert  his  humanity  that  he  abandons  the 
natural  world  of  pleasure  and  resolves  to  suffer  as  a  human 
being.     The  usual  formulas  of  naturism,  such  as  the  will-to- 
hve  and  struggle  for  existence,  do  not  account  for  human 
striving.     If  the  striving  within  man  were  for  life  alone  it 
would  end  when  life  had  been  attained  and  its  issues  secured 
against  outer  danger;  that  is,  it  would  produce  and  perfect 
man  as  a  nature-being  alone.     Man  continues  the  struggle  on 
beyond  nature,  and,  in  a  realm  of  humanity,  issuing  from 
his  own  activities,  he  strives  after  virtue  and  beauty,  knowl- 
edge and  spiritual  life.    No  longer  does  he  wrestle  with  flesh 
and  blood,  but  carries  on  a  conflict  with  spiritual  forces,  and 
by  undertaking  a  special   form  of  activity  he  acquires  de- 
finite human   satisfaction.     To  assure  ourselves  of  the   in- 
adequate plans  of  naturism  and  to  realize  how  vigorously 
man  strives  beyond  sensuous  life,  we  need  only  to  review 
some  characteristic  forms  of  human  endeavor. 

As  a  human  being,  man  must  have  something  more  than 
the  gifts  of  nature ;  these  he  must  originate  in  freedom  and 


i66  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


develop  according  to  reason.  Civilization  stands  out  as  an 
attempt  on  man's  part  to  construct  an  order  of  being  to  take 
the  place  of  the  natural  one.  Plato  may  rise  above  actual 
civilization  and  outline  an  ideal  commonwealth;  Rousseau 
may  sink  below  it  and  find  the  ideal  in  nature;  but  the 
tendency  to  civilize  and  to  live  in  an  artificial  order  seems 
to  belong  to  man  as  such,  just  as  it  reveals  a  normal  ten- 
dency of  his  nature.  Whether  he  advances  beyond  his 
civilization  or  returns  to  the  natural  order,  he  must  act  in 
response  to  freedom  and  adapt  himself  to  life  in  a  conscious 
manner;  whereby  we  know  that  nature  has  lost  her  hold 
upon  him.  No  known  principles  of  nature  can  account  for 
man's  life  according  to  rights  in  a  state  governed  by  law; 
no  naturistic  theories  can  account  for  the  truly  human  doing 
exhibited  by  this  highest  species.  The  loftiest  place  in  nature 
will  not  satisfy  man  who  wants  a  world  of  his  own,  and 
where  the  forces  of  nature  combine  to  produce  a  human  will 
they  are  further  destined  to  feel  that  will  turned  against 
them.  Now  civilization  is  an  evidence  of  this  surplus  of 
natural  force. 

Culture  is  even  more  competitive  than  civilization,  since 
It  is  vaster  in  itself,  and  more  completely  emancipated  from 
the  natural  order  of  things.  The  struggle  for  culture, 
which  urges  man  on  beyond  nature  into  realms  of  poetry 
and  plastic,  is  a  part  of  man  in  his  early  as  well  as  his 
later  condition.  Primitive  man  produced  his  culture  in  the 
very  face  of  the  downward  forces  of  nature:  we  seek  to 
continue  ours  in  the  industrialism  of  steel  and  stone.  The 
survival  of  culture,  in  itself  of  another  than  a  natural  order, 
is  the  survival  of  man ;  that  which  invests  man  and  informs 
his  consciousness  is  this  principle  of  a  strictly  human  life. 
Now  the  very  fact  that  art  imitates,  symbolizes  and  seeks  to 
perfect  nature  is  evidence  of  the  bloodless  conflict  between 
the  two,  and  where  each  seems  to  claim  man  as  its  private 
possession,  the  significance  of  humanity  begins  to  appear  in 
fine  proportion.  Culture,  which  is  internal  and  sentimental, 
seems  to  be  the  easy  prey  of  a  violent  nature,  but  when  man 
chooses  between  them,  he  finds  the  world  of  culture  more 
habitable.  At  this  early  stage  of  our  work,  we  cannot  de- 
cide whether  the  life  of  culture  is  calculated  to  perfect  and 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  167 

satisfy  humanity  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  indispensable  to  him; 
but  we  can  assert  that  man  was  destined  for  just  such  an  in- 
tellectual life  as  history  has  revealed  in  him. 

Both  civilization  and  culture  not  only  negate  nature,  but 
assert  humanity  as  an  independent  order.  Between  it  and 
them  there  is  a  firm  bond  and  one  unknown  in  the  world  of 
natural  forces.  Humanity  may  be  viewed  aesthetically 
after  the  manner  of  pagan  art  and  politics,  or  it  may  assume 
the  modern  form  where  sympathy  takes  the  place  of  super- 
iority ;  It  IS  plain  that  man  has  been  determined  to  supersede 
nature  at  any  cost  of  health  and  happiness.  Humanity,  or- 
pnized  without  by  civilization,  within  by  culture,  stands 
before  man  as  the  goal  of  his  life  and  the  ground  of  his 
being,  so  that  any  scheme  that  seeks  to  comprehend  him 
nriust  abandon  a  purely  naturistic  standard  and  survey  him  in 
the  independent  order  of  his  humanity.  The  naturistic 
scheme  of  ethics  accounts  for  human  striving  as  mere  desire 
for  pleasure  or  the  impulse  to  seek  satisfaction  in  useful 
labor;  but  a  genuine  view  of  man  reveals  how  far-reaching 
IS  the  tendency  toward  humanity,  so  that  no  simple  methods 
of  hedonism  can  hope  to  account  for  the  performances  of 
human  history.  Civilization  and  culture  may  be  wrong 
from  the  hedonic  standpoint,  inasmuch  as  they  make  man's 
departure  from  nature  an  unhappy  one;  but  they  are  right 
from  the  humanistic  standpoint  which  assumes  something 
beyond  nature  as  the  destiny  of  man. 

History  declares  that  this  vocation  has  already  been 
taken  by  man,  even  though  he  may  not  know  what  all  his 
striving  IS  for,  and  so  far  as  the  negative  side  of  the  question 
is  concerned,  we  need  not  be  in  doubt  that  man  has  before 
him  some  goal  unknown  to  nature.  Man  may  be  earth- 
born  but  he  is  lured  onward  by  the  spirit  of  humanity, 
which  so  influences  his  mind  that  no  fullness  of  cosmic  life 
can  satisfy  him.  In  this  spirit  of  independence,  man  ela- 
borates realms  of  his  own  for  himself,  so  that  within  his 
civilization  and  culture  appear  the  forms  of  rights  and  re- 
ligion. Only  a  superficial  philosophy  can  find  satisfaction  in 
a  theory  of  natural  rights  and  natural  religion,  for  the  very 
essence  of  law  and  worship  consists  in  transcending  nature 
in  the  interests  of  independent  humanity.     In  contrast  with 


i68  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


the  endless  demands  of  a  progressive,  creative  humanity,  the 
satisfactions  offered  by  naturistic  hedonism  are  crude  beyond 
expression. 

4 — THE  INNESS  OF  HUMAN  FEELING 

The  superiority  of  humanity  over  nature  produces  not 
only  the  excess  of  human  striving,  but  the  inwardness  of 
human  feeling.  Pleasure — pain,  as  hedonism  interprets 
it,  does  not  lead  man  out  as  far  as  his  human  striving  calls 
him  to  go,  nor  does  it  descend  to  the  depths  of  his  inner 
nature.  Hedonism  has  neglected  the  psychological  duty  of 
emancipating  the  affections,  and  has  persisted  in  the  arti- 
ficial introspection  of  the  i8th  century.  From  Aristotle  to 
Spinoza,  psychology  was  bi-partite  in  its  discussion  of  cogni- 
tion and  volition,  and  not  until  the  German  psychologists 
of  the  late  Enlightenment  took  up  the  problem,  wsls  any 
distinct  place  found  for  affection.  This  important  step  was 
taken  by  Tetens  in  his  ''Philosophtsche  Versuche  uber  die 
menschljche  Natur'  (1776),  in  imitation  of  Mendelssohn, 
in  his  " Brief e  uber  die  Empfindungen"  (1755).  The  tri- 
partite scheme  was  systematized  by  Kant  in  his  three 
Critiques,  wherein  the  "Kritik  der  UrtheiUkrajt"  recognizes 
the  possibility  of  judgments  of  feeling,  and  submitted  to 
tJialectical  test  in  Schleiermacher's  "Reden  uber  die  Re- 
ligion/" Where  aesthetics  and  religion,  as  also  psychology, 
have  found  it  feasible  to  consider  feeling  as  an  independent 
phase  of  consciousness,  ethics  has  adhered  to  traditional 
views  with  their  mechanical  ideas  about  pleasure  and  pain, 
with  the  paradoxes  of  pleasures  and  dilemmas  of  desire  that 
must  follow  from  such  an  artificial  method. 

The  emancipation  of  feeling  is  only  a  sign  of  the  general 
freedom  of  man  from  nature.  In  his  animal  capacity,  man 
experiences  pain  and  pleasure,  but  in  his  human  character 
he  turns  these  into  intellectual  judgments  concerning  the 
worth  of  living  and  the  beauty  of  nature.  Hence  it  is 
not  the  ^  immediate  quality,  but  the  ultimate  significance 
which  gives  to  feeling  its  important  office  in  man's  con- 
sciousness, and  without  the  ability  to  judge  according  to 
feeling,  there  could  be  no  more  problem  of  life  for  man 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  169 

than  for  the  beast.    Thus  the  significant  thing  about  feeling 
is  Its  adaptability  to  forms  of  judgment,  and  history  does 
not  fail  to  note  that  when  feeling  was  made  independent, 
the  science  of  aesthetics  arose  with  Baumgarten,  Sulzer  and 
Kajit.     The  nearest  approach  made  by  hedonism  was  in  the 
hedonic  calculus   whose    failure   was   due   to   the   fact   that 
feeling  was  not  treated  inwardly  but  in  a  purely  objective 
fashion  as  though  it  were  material  rather  than  mental. 
^      Some  other  than  a  hedonic  quality  will  be  found  to  reside 
in    human    feelings;   and    the    fact   that   pleasure   and    pain 
belong  to  man  gives  them  something  more  than  a  psychologi- 
cal  import.      Pleasure   as  such   belongs  to   the   normal   in- 
dividual by  virtue  of  his  inherent  animality,  but  the  capacity 
for  enjoyment  differs  among  individuals  in   a  manner  un- 
known   in   other   orders  of   animal   life.      Hence   it   comes 
about  that  some   individuals  of  a  certain   organization   are 
more  inclined  to  seek  pleasure  and  better  fitted  to  appreciate 
It  than   those  of  different  temperament.     Individuals  pos- 
sessed of  beautiful  souls  will  find  in  pleasure  what  another 
type   of   humanity   overlooks;   life   means   more   hedonically 
to  Goethe  than  to  Schiller;  more  to  Corot  than  to  Millet. 
Nature,  which  is  a  great  leveler,  may  put  men  upon  the 
same  original  plane ;  but  culture  differentiates  them  and  thus 
makes  it  difficult  to  generalize  upon  the  basis  of  natural 
feeling.     Since,   therefore,   man   becomes  man,  not  through 
his  given  life  in  nature,  but  by  means  of  the  cultivation  of 
his  humanity,  the  hedonic  system  betrays  its  weakness  when 
It  endeavors  to  account  for  him  en  masse  upon  the  simple 
basis  of  psychic  pleasure — pain. 

5 — THE   ENTRANCE  OF   PESSIMISM 

The  striving  of  humanity  beyond  nature  and  man's 
descent  into  his  consciousness  have  been  found  to  carry  life 
beyond  the  borders  of  hedonism  and  eudaemonism.  At  the 
same  time,  such  a  decidedly  human  way  of  conducting  life  re- 
moved man  from  any  optimistic  view  of  the  world.  How 
remarkable  it  is  that  naturism  with  all  its  boast  of  empirical 
faithfulness  should  habitually  pursue  the  path  of  an  optimism 
so  rarely  justified  by  actual  life!     It  is  true  that  Hegesias, 


I70  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


the  Cyrenaic,  who  sought  to  justify  life  in  terms  of  pleasure, 
fell  into  such  profound  pessimism  that  in  his  exaltation  of 
suicide  he  was  called,  ireto-i^amros — the  persuader  to  die. 
Hobbes  also  was  wont  to  despair  of  man,  but  believed  that 
life  could  be  made  successful  when  proper  political  steps  were 
taken.  But  most  hedonists  are  heedlessly  optimistic,  where- 
by they  show  how  far  from  the  spirit  of  humanity  their 
theory  is.  The  pessimistic  question  confronts  every  one  who 
discourses  upon  life,  and  both  nature  and  humanity  require 
man  to  consider  whether  their  respective  claims  can  be  met 
by  hedonic  methods.  Nature  is  as  far  from  the  notions  of 
hedonism  as  humanity  is  from  the  plans  of  eudaemonism. 

Man's  life  in  nature  is  so  serious  that  hedonism  can 
scarcely  guide  him.  A  recognition  of  this  fact  may  be  found 
in  the  altered  view  of  pleasure  when  the  school  passed  from 
the  hedonic  calculus  of  Bentham  to  the  hedonic  law  of 
Spencer,  whereby  feeling  gave  way  to  life  in  which  it 
assumed  a  symptomatic  place  with  pleasure  and  pain  indi- 
cating benefit  and  injury  respectively.  Evolution  having 
shown  what  a  conquest  life  is,  it  is  no  longer  possible  to 
take  life  for  granted  and  then  seek  the  greatest  amount  of 
pleasure  in  it;  but  life  must  be  pursued  without  regard  to 
pain  or  pleasure  which  subordinate  their  particular  interests 
to  the  general  conditions  of  existence.  Preservation,  not 
pleasure,  is  the  main  thing  in  human  physical  existence,  and 
under  the  severe  conditions  of  life  it  is  absurd  to  continue 
the  traditional  arguments  for  the  greatest  amount  of  happi- 
ness. Spencer  was  aware  of  the  weakness  displayed  by  he- 
donism, but  was  unwilling  to  depart  from  the  stolid  optimism 
that  had  so  long  accompanied  British  morality.  (Data  of 
Ethics,  §  9-19.)  If  one  will  idealize  life  he  may  escape, 
perhaps,  from  this  pessimistic  dilemma,  but  hedonism  has 
ever  relied  upon  the  given  facts  of  experience  and,  therefore, 
no  such  idealistic  method  can  relieve  the  situation  for  him. 
As  to  the  idealist  himself,  he  is  so  interested  in  contrary  con- 
siderations, like  virtue  and  rectitude,  that  he  does  not  avail 
himself  of  the  opportunity  to  rescue  happiness  from  its 
hedonic  fate,  and  so  pessimism  triumphs  over  a  view  that 
says,  Life  was  meant  for  pleasure  which  it  produces  to  such 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  171 

a  degree  as  to  make  conduct  hedonic. 

Where  nature  seems  bent  upon  something  more  funda- 
mental than  pleasure,  humanity  seems  equally  indifferent  to 
eudaemonia.     This   second    form   of   naturism   claims   that, 
whereas  man  may  not  receive  pleasure  as  a  gift  from  nature, 
he  may  promote  happiness  by  reacting  upon  the  world  in  its 
immediacy.     But,  like  nature,  humanity  has  larger  interests 
for  man  and  to  cultivate  the  garden  is  as  vain  as  to  seek 
enjoyment  from  its  fruits.    The  purpose  of  life  is  too  remote 
for  these  intra-terrestrial  schemes,  and  like  hedonism,  eudae- 
monism must  settle  with  a  host  who  has  vast  issues  implicit 
in  his  inner  nature.     The  human  will,  likewise,  is  not  so 
easily  subdued  and  the  blindness  of  its  activities  cannot  be 
cured  by  the  simple  methods  of  eudaemonist  labor.     He  who 
knows   the   will   is  not   likely   to   magnify   the   blessings  of 
mere  activity,  but  tends  rather  to  agree  with  Schopenhauer 
m  his  view  of  the  misery  that  follows  from  the  servitude 
of   the   will.      "Anxiety   for   the   constant   demands   of   the 
will   in  whatsoever   form   continually  fills  and   moves  con- 
sciousness;  but   without   rest   no   true   well-being   is   at   all 
possible.    Thus  is  the  subject  of  willing  constantly  stretched 
on  the  revolving  wheel  of  Ixion,  pours  water  into  the  sieve 
of  the  Danaids,  is  the  ever-longing  Tantalus."     {Welt  als 
fVille  u.  Vorstellung,  §  38.)     A  similar  conclusion  against 
bhnd   activism   appears  in   Browning's   "Cleon,"  where  the 
poet  writes  to  the  king,  saying: 

"Thou  in  the  daily  building  of  thy  tower, 

Did'st  ne'er  engage  in  work,  for  mere  work's  sake — 
Had'st  ever  in  thy  heart  the  living  hope 
Of  some  eventual  rest  a-top  of  it." 

Nature's  inferiority  to  man  is  responsible  for  this  pessimistic 
condition  that  besets  all  eudaemonism,  for  the  order  of  being 
capable  of  producing  mineral,  plant  and  animal,  is  mani- 
festly inadequate  to  the  claims  of  humanity.  When  man 
appears  on  the  planet,  the  world  is  superseded,  its  borders 
transcended  by  reason,  its  forces  excelled  by  the  creative 
will  of  the  highest  species.     Whatever  else  it  may  be,  hu- 


172  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

manity  is  an  order  of  being  in  which  will  and  intellect  are 
not  in  immediate  rapport  with  the  world  external,  but  reach 
out  toward  some  more  satisfactory  object.  Reason  cannot 
constantly  dwell  upon  the  concrete,  but  needs  nourishment 
from  the  contemplation  of  the  imperceptible,  so  that  the 
attempt  on  the  part  of  naturism  to  bind  humanity  down  to 
immediacy  results  in  pessimism. 

6 — THE    MEANING   OF   HUMAN    FEELING 

In  surveying  the  problem  of  human  feeling  as  it  now 
shapes  itself  at  the  conclusion  of  the  hedonic,  eudaemonistic 
discussion,  we  need  not  raise  the  empty  question.  Why 
does  man  have  feelings?  Nature,  which  furnishes  lower 
types  of  sentient  life  with  the  same  quality  of  affection, 
evidently  desires  that  we  shall  accept  the  mere  fact  of  feel- 
ing, along  with  many  other  phases  of  our  consciousness. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  both  pertinent  and  necessary  to 
ask  why  man  feels  as  he  does,  especially  when  the  life  of 
pleasure  leads  us  into  a  labyrinth  with  its  accompanying 
loss  of  enjoyment.  The  details  of  this  unavoidable  paradox, 
wherein  the  search  for  pleasure  defeats  itself,  have  already 
been  relegated  to  the  hedonic  argument,  but  the  secret  of 
the  problem  seems  to  lie  elsewhere.  The  reason  for  the 
paradox  appears  to  consist  in  the  peculiar  position  which 
man  occupies  in  the  larger  universe  of  nature-humanity. 
With  his  human  vocation,  which  occasions  ideal  desires,  man 
is  still  in  the  care  of  nature,  and  thus  can  hardly  avoid  doing 
that  which  promises  pleasure.  For  the  animal  that  abides 
wholly  in  nature,  there  is  no  hedonic  paradox ;  but  in  perfect 
accord  with  the  hedonic  law,  the  creature  of  the  natural 
order  fulfills  the  demands  of  its  being. 

In  man,  whose  consciousness  quickens  the  quality  and 
intensity  of  all  feeling,  pleasure  is  set  up  as  an  end  in  itself 
to  be  pursued,  not  for  the  sake  of  benefit,  but  on  account  of 
the  passing  experience.  But  the  development  of  reason, 
which  leads  man  to  postulate  pleasure  as  a  good,  does  not 
fail  to  influence  the  humanistic  side  of  his  being,  and,  like 
the  battle  of  birds  in  the  upper  atmosphere,  the  hedonic  and 
humanistic  carry  on  their  conflict  for  the  soul  of  man.     It  is 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  173 

man's  position  between  nature  and  spirit  which  makes  pleas- 
urc  seem  so  much  and  really  amount  to  so  little ;  this  it  is 
which  produces  the  hedonic  puzzle.  If  nature  alone  were  at 
work  in  man,  his  instincts  would  guide  him  right  to  a  material 
end ;  but  man  is  a  combination  of  both  material  and  spiritual, 
and  what  can  better  reveal  this  than  the  problem  before  us? 
More  advanced  forms  of  naturism  seek  to  escape  from  the 
paradox  by  setting  up  some  derivative  product  of  pleasure,  as 
political  utility,  or  social  preservation.  Thorough  relief  can 
come  only  when  man  realizes  that  he  can  not  be  contented 
upon  the  basis  of  naturistic  living,  but  in  the  spirit  of  culture 
moves  onward  toward  the  realization  of  humanity. 

The  progress  of  hedonism  did  not  fail  to  advise  man 
concerning  the  largesse  of  human  feeling;  for  pleasure  and 
pain,  which  are  themselves  common  phenomena  in  the  whole 
sentiment  world,   are   treated   by  man   in  such  an   original 
tashion   that  they  became  abruptly  transformed  into  senti- 
ments    This  appeared  when  we  called  attention  to  the  in- 
dependence  of  affection  as  one  among  other  processes  in  con- 
sciousness.    Such  an  emancipation  of  human  feeling,  which 
gave  Kant  his  aesthetics  and  Schleiermacher  his  philosophy 
ot  religion,  affirms  the  supremacy  of  man  over  matter;  for 
It  creates  interests  whose  ideal  form  and  unattainable  char- 
^ter  are  never  the  work  of  nature.     Humanity  appears  in 
these  aesthetic  phases  of  consciousness  and  we  see  anew  why 
It  IS  that  the  human  subject  can  find  only  surprise  and  de- 
^at  in   the  attempted   appropriation  of   immediate   feeling. 
1  he  rational  nature  of  man,  which  allows  him  to  survey  both 
the  world  and  himself  in  their  unity,  will  not  permit  him 
to  find  ultimate  satisfaction  in  such  feelings  as  arise  in  par- 
ticular natural  forms  and  appeal  to  so  many  isolated  func- 
tions of  consciousness.     Meant  for  totality  within  and  with- 
out, the  representative  of  the  human  species  cannot  satisfy 
his  desires  by  means  of  any  sum  of  individual  feelings. 

This  inward  human  responsibility,  which  the  moralist 
hnds  It  so  difficult  to  understand,  has  long  been  assumed  in 
art  and  religion.  These  forms  of  culture  recognize  that 
nature  was  never  meant  to  contain  humanity  whose  overflow 
beyond  the  borders  of  sense  has  become  a  by-word.  It  was 
no  longer  urged  that  man  should  either  accept  or  reject  na- 


174  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

ture,  for  it  was  understood  that  the  natural  could  be  but  a 
phase  of  his  being.  To  believe  in  natural  impressions  apart 
from  some  idealistic  interpretation  of  them  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  insist  that  reason  spurn  sense  altogether,  is  un- 
heard of  in  aesthetical  and  religious  philosophies.  These 
forms  of  spiritual  life  do  not  consider  sense  and  reason  as 
though  they  were  equal,  for  a  consideration  of  their  special 
qualities  can  only  show  how  one  tends  to  the  primitive,  the 
other  to  the  perfect.  Our  modern  philosophy  witnessed  the 
reconciliation  of  the  two  when  Kant  revised  logic  and 
aesthetics,  but  thus  far  the  field  of  ethics  has  produced  only 
casuistical  conflicts  or  special  forms  of  theoretical  construc- 
tion. Without  looking  to  any  serious  philosophy  of  life, 
ethical  theory  has  said  either  yes  or  no  to  our  human  in- 
stincts, without  examining  the  conditions  of  human  existence. 
Accordingly,  it  is  an  imperfect  disjunction  in  ethical  rea- 
soning when  it  is  declared  that  man  must  either  be  in  the 
world  eudaemonistically,  or  out  of  it  rigoristically ;  since 
there  is  a  third  possible  view  which  consists  in  assuming  that 
he  may  be  passing  through  nature  in  the  achieving  of  his 
destiny. 

The  eudaemonistic  view  surpasses  the  purely  hedonic  one 
when  it  seeks  to  provide  for  human  satisfaction  in  terms  of 
immediacy,  whether  in  contemplation  or  conquest.  Eudac- 
monism  is  centered  in  the  empirical  ego,  whose  field  of 
activity  is  the  natural  world-order;  as  a  theory,  it  does  not 
appreciate  the  ambiguous  place  which  man  occupies  in  the 
world,  for  it  concludes  by  resigning  him  to  the  natural  order 
where  he  is  supposed  to  find  himself.  Man  himself  makes 
use  of  eudaemonistic  methods,  when  he  transforms  sense  into 
thought,  passion  into  sentiment,  force  into  law,  wonder  into 
worship;  but  in  so  doing  he  is  only  attempting  the  grand 
transmutation  of  naturism  into  humanism.  Eudaemonism 
is  really  a  form  of  renunciation  which  despairs  of  making 
out  any  sense  in  human  life ;  persuaded  that  it  was  the  final 
form  of  human  being,  Shakespeare  concluded  that  the  prac- 
tical postulate  of  life  was  an  activity  which  was  suffiiciently 
realized  in  play.  Goethe  saw  the  same  truth,  but  with  the 
Enlightenment  instead  of  the  Renaissance  behind  him,  he 
contended  for  utility  as  a  means  to  self-satisfaction.     Dante's 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  175 

sense  of  humanity  leads  him  to  postulate  an  endless  spiritual 
progress,  which  reappears  in  the  ceaseless  strivings  of  Wag- 
ner's art. 

That  human  sensitivity  which  is  occasioned  by  man's  am- 
biguous position  in  the  universe  cannot  receive  full  expres- 
sion as  long  as  it  remains  upon  the  individualistic  plane ;  for 
the  very  dramatic  tendency  of  feeling,  wherein  Shakespeare 
and  Goethe  emphasize  the  artistic  nature  of  man,  involves 
not  only  an  individual  actor  with  lyrical  tendencies,  but  an 
epic  world  of  persons  to  which  he  seeks  to  adjust  himself. 
Hence,  apart  from  altruism,  the  living  striving  human  in- 
dividual evinces  a  complete  form  of  activity  which  involves 
his  fellows  as  well  as  himself.     To  be  altruistic  is  only  to 
aid  another  ego  in  his  self-love ;  to  be  humanistic  is  to  have 
interests  so  universal   that  they  merge   the  claims  of  both 
the  empirical  persons  called  ego  and  alter  into  a  total  form 
of  spiritual  life.    The  problem  of  altruism  is  not  to  be  solved 
upon  the  basis  of  a  naturism  w^hich  knows  nothing  of  the 
human  individuality  and  totality  of  man ;  but  can  appreciate 
only  the  pleasures  and  utilities  which  gather  now  around  one 
and  then  another  person.     Humanity,  which  does  not  fail  to 
produce   the  selfhood  of  the  individual   in  contrast  to  the 
not-self  of  nature,  is  no  less  remiss  in  elaborating  a  human 
worldhood  without  which  the  ideal  of  humanity  cannot  be 
attained.     Hence  we  do  not  praise  Dante  and  Wagner  be- 
cause they  taught  altruism,  but  because  they  revealed  that 
fullness  of  human  existence  which  is  beyond  the  claims  of 
cither  the  individual  or  the  group. 


7 — THE  SENSE  OF   HUMAN   STRIVING 

Just  as  the  sensitivity  of  human  consciousness,  inexpli- 
cable in  terms  of  man's  nature-existence,  seems  to  depend 
upon  the  ambiguous  position  of  man  in  the  world,  so  desire 
and  activity  will  be  found  to  respond  to  none  other  than 
an  inner  call  which  comes  from  the  world  of  humanity. 
Hedonism  seeks  to  exhaust  human  spontaneity  in  accordance 
with  desire;  eudaemonism  would  consume  it  in  activity  of 
the  will  directed  toward  some  object  of  immediate  interest. 
With  respect  to  the  hedonic  form  of  human  activity,  it  is 


176  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

just  as  reasonable  to  inquire,  Why  should  man  desire?  as  to 
ask,  Why  docs  man  have  feelings?  Human  sensitivity,  who6e 
root  lies  buried  in  the  recesses  of  nature,  appears  explicable 
in  the  light  of  man's  naturistic-humanistic  place  in  the  uni- 
verse ;  for  it  is  the  perpetual  contrast  between  a  spiritual  need 
and  a  sensuous  form  of  satisfaction  which  produces  paradox 
and  pessimism.  So  also  human  desire ;  man  is  urged  onward 
by  that  central  affirmation  which  constitutes  his  being  as 
human.  As  the  animal  is  aroused  by  the  sense  of  a  good 
which  it  seeks  for  itself  and  its  species,  so  man  is  ever  stirred 
and  supported  by  an  ineradicable  tendency  to  become  hu- 
manized. Our  examination  of  hedonism  was  meant  to 
bring  out  the  fact  that  man  is  ruled  by  active  desire,  which 
ever  acts  as  an  initiative,  and  is  not  guided  by  any  passive 
calculation  which  weighs  the  attractions  of  pleasure  and 
the  repulsions  of  pain.  As  desire  explains  feeling,  so  hu- 
manity must  account  for  desire. 

Desire  can  explain  nothing  beyond  itself,  but  waits  for 
some  fuller  impulse  to  account  for  its  particular  form  of 
striving.  The  organic  impulse  in  man,  which  ever  leads 
him  to  assert  his  own  being  over  against  the  world,  is  the 
source  of  desire  which  itself  operates  in  the  narrow  domain 
of  nature.  As  a  human  function,  desire  has  caught  the 
secret  of  life,  and  stands  in  need  only  of  idealization  with 
its  accompanying  extension  of  the  tendency  into  the  world 
of  spirit.  Man  was  meant,  not  for  activity  alone,  but  for 
perfect  humanity;  and  the  sense  of  human  striving  rcaolvei 
itself  into  that  unified  form  of  affirmation  which  constitutes 
the  essence  of  man  as  such.  The  persistency  of  desire  ap- 
pears, then,  in  connection  with  all  human  positing,  and  as 
the  beast  cannot  escape  from  the  struggle  to  live,  so  man 
can  find  no  release  from  the  ever-present  impulse  to  cmand- 
pate  his  humanity  from  the  domain  of  nature.  The  par- 
ticular is  explained  by  the  general,  and  the  part  by  the  whole; 
we  desire  in  nature  because  we  strive  for  humanity. 

The  mystery  of  activity  is  one  with  the  mystery  of 
desire ;  that  is,  both  are  expressions  of  that  complete  afHrma- 
tion  which,  as  it  guides  man  to  his  humanity,  leads  him  to 
long  for  some  more  or  less  immediate  form  of  satisfaction 
in  nature.     Eudaemonistic  activity  is  one  remove  from  tm- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  177 

mediate  consciousness  in  both  subject  and  object.  It  is  the 
will  of  man  directed  toward  an  idea,  not  his  desire  aiming  at 
sense;  and  in  such  a  deliberate  manner  that  the  purpose  of 
life,  obscured  by  hedonic  desiring,  appears  more  clearly  now 
that  it  is  conducted  amid  ideal  feelings  with  the  threat  of 
pessimism  hanging  over  life.  No  longer  lured  by  pleasure 
or  animated  by  desire,  man  is  permitted  to  assert  his  humanity 
as  an  end  in  itself,  although  eudaemonism  does  not  encour- 
age him  to  invest  this  with  any  other  than  the  naturistic 
sense  of  immediacy.  Yet  the  main  point  of  the  eudae- 
monistic argument  remains  as  the  permanent  element  of 
human  striving,  which  with  Rousseau  and  Voltaire  was  a 
joyous  cultivation  of  the  garden,  while  with  Faust  and 
Fichte  it  involved  the  activity  of  the  will  for  the  sake  of  an 
act  which  began  in  the  deed — Im  Anfang  war  die  That, 
Humanism  is  ready  to  further  this  method  of  life,  but  it 
postulates  striving  for  the  sake  of  humanity,  not  for  the 
sake  of  activity.  Art  for  art's  sake,  faith  for  faith's  sake, 
action  for  action's  sake,  are  but  auxiliaries  of  that  total  deed 
which  man  forms  for  the  purpose  of  creating  his  humanity. 

By  means  of  that  idealization  with  which  eudaemonism 
exalts  human  activity,  it  becomes  possible  to  regard  the 
human  deed  apart  from  its  source  in  desire  and  its  goal  in 
utility.  As  hedonism  had  vainly  sought  for  a  justifiable 
altruism,  so  it  felt  the  need  of  an  idealistic  estimate  of  action 
in  the  form  of  moralism,  whose  essence,  however,  it  was 
unable  to  evince.  Eudaemonism  carries  the  argument  one 
step  nearer  the  conclusion  when  it  abandons  the  fruit  of 
action  as  something  concrete  and  falls  back  upon  the  useful 
tendency  inherent  in  the  exercise  of  the  will.  We  cultivate 
the  garden  for  the  sake  of  the  gardener,  and  perform  the  Attd, 
for  the  sake  of  the  act.  This  involves  the  artistic  ideal  of 
an  activity  which,  in  the  erection  of  a  temple,  carving  of  a 
statue,  or  painting  of  a  canvas,  ministers  not  unto  human 
welfare  in  the  world  of  corporeal  things,  but  still  keeps 
within  the  domain  of  immediacy  in  time  and  space.  Never- 
theless, man  becomes  detached  from  his  rough  contact  with 
the  world,  and  learns  to  seek  ideal  satisfactions.  Such  is  the 
manifest  meaning  of  hcteronomy  which  does  not  so  much 
identify  pleasure  with  virtue,  as  it  shows  how  the  ideal  satis- 


178  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

factions  of  eudaemonia  tend  In  the  same  direction  as  the 
full  values  of  the  human  world-order.  Autonomy  is  not  the 
corrective  for  heteronomy ;  for  in  the  totality  of  human  striv- 
ing both  have  a  subordinate  position.  Hence  he  who  ele- 
vates human  striving  above  both  desire  and  duty  Is  no  more 
interested  In  evinclngi  the  autonomous  character  of  the 
moral  life  than  In  showing  how  altruistic  is  the  essence  of 
human  action.  It  is  sufficient  to  point  out  that,  both  with 
regard  to  his  fellow  and  himself,  man  Is  able  to  assume  an 
Idealistic  attitude  which  is  a  sign  of  the  spiritual  supremacy 
of  his  human  life.  He  may  be  both  creature  and  character. 
From  the  conclusion  to  which  we  have  been  drawn,  in 
summing  up  the  results  of  naturism  in  the  light  of  human 
striving,  we  may  pass  to  the  second  phase  of  human  activity 
In  the  form  of  characteristic  ethics.  One  system  gives  content 
and  coloring,  the  other  form  and  line.  Man's  capacity  for  a 
desire  which  Is  above  mere  pleasure-seeking,  and  his  ability 
to  exert  an  activity  which  is  superior  to  the  love  of  happi- 
ness, prepare  for  another  form  of  life  wherein  a  restraining 
conscience  takes  the  place  of  mere  feeling,  and  a  rigorous 
duty  offsets  the  Influence  of  naturlstic  desire.  Yet,  like 
naturistic  ethics,  characteristic  morality  is  nothing  apart 
from  the  total  activity  of  human  positing. 


PART  THIRD 


CHARACTERISTIC  ETHICS 


THE  LIFE  OF  HUMANITY  IN  WILL 

I — FORMS  OF  THE  DOCTRINE 

As  naturistic  ethics  sought  to  show  man  how  he  could 
receive  the  most  from  the  world,  so  characteristic  ethics 
teaches  him  how  to  give  back  to  the  universe  all  that  he  has 
acquired.  No  simple  contrast  between  the  categories  of 
passivity  and  activity,  like  Aristotle's  nuiv  and  irourxav, 
will  indicate  the  immense  difference  between  these  two 
views  of  human  life.  Naturism  indicates  life  without 
ideals;  characteristic  ethics  gives  a  theory  of  life  without 
proof.  Both  views  fail,  because  they  do  not  stop  to  consider 
the  general  question  of  humanity,  What  is  life  for?  If  the 
enjoyment  of  pleasure  is  impossible  and  the  self -infliction  of 
pain  unnecessary,  both  eudacmonist  and  rigorist  are  wrong  in 
that  they  uphold  principles  which  are  not  native  to  humanity. 
These  practical  conclusions,  which  relegate  man  to  happi- 
ness or  miser  ^epcnd  upon  the  premises  which  uphold  the 
arguments  concerned.  Here,  naturism,  which  is  all  content, 
is  wanting  in  ethical  categories  and  must  borrow  from  its 
opponent  when  it  would  talk  of  moralism;  there,  character- 
istic ethics  lacks  the  content  necessary  to  fill  out  its  forms  of 
right  and  obligation. 

Like  naturistic  ethics,  the  characteristic  school  seeks  to 
account  ic  *  lished  morality  and  then  attempts  to  align 
an  ideal  for  mankind ;  in  addition  to  this  analogy,  it  follows 
naturism  in  assuming  first  a  spcdal  form  of  intuitionism, 
comparable  to  hedonism,  a  general  view  of  life  according  to 
rigorism;  or  the  opposite  of  eudaemonism.  Intuitionism  as- 
sumes a  fourfold  root  whose  branches  are  inclined  in  either 
an  intellectual  or  a  volitional  direction.  Thus  conscience, 
the  antipodc  of  pleasure,  allies  itself  with  rectitude  and  de- 
velops ethical  judgment,  while  freedom  develops  into  duty 

181 


i82  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

whose  demands  offer  contrast  to  those  of  desire.  How  the 
growing  moral  life  of  man  finds  nourishment  from  such 
barren  principles  remains  to  be  seen,  but  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  there  is  a  life  according  to  character  which  is  as  real  as 
life  according  to  nature,  and  the  program  of  intuitionism 
while  wanting  in  pleasure  and  desire,  happiness  and  utility  is 
likely  to  be  as  rich  as  that  of  a  hedonism  which  knew  nothing 
of  conscience  and  rectitude,  freedom  and  duty. 

2 — THE   PLACE  OF  CHARACTERISTIC   ETHICS 

In  the  light  of  the  general  problem  of  life,  we  may  ask 
what  characteristic  ethics  proposes  to  do   for  man.     This 
will  appear  in  general  when  the  method  of  intuitionism  is 
contrasted  with  the  service  of  naturistic  morality.     Where 
the   ethics   of   naturism   attempts   to   explain    the   origin   of 
morality  in  sense,  characteristic  ethics  assumes  the  task  of 
justifying  its  ground  in   reason,  or   intuition.      It   is  quite 
natural  that  such  a  plan  should   appear  in   the  course  of 
man's  moral  progress  toward  humanity,  and  we  should  expect 
the  characteristic  view  of  life  to  assume  a  place  as  one  of 
the  stages  in  human  realization.     The  continuity  of  human 
striving,  which  leads  man  through  successive  stages  of  de- 
velopment, makes  room  for  a  quality  of  life  and  an  accom- 
panying class  of  men  above  the  range  of  naturistic  hedonism. 
Survivals  of  this  second  period  are  indicated  in  the  unfolding 
of  Aryan  wisdom,  wherein  it  is  noticeable  how  a  triple  system 
seems  to  invest  the  spirit  of  human  progress.     Herein,  the 
tendency  to  make  morality  derivative  and  characteristic,  and 
not  merely  immediate  and  naturistic,   is  shown  in  Kapila's 
quality  of  Rajas-Guna,  with  its  devotion  to  works,  appears 
in  the  psychical  men  of  Valentinus,  in  the  warrior  class  of 
Plato,  as  in  Aristotle's  men  of  public  life,  and  in  modern 
philosophy  of  history  appears  as  a  stage  in  the  development 
of  mankind  which  passes  through  a  heroic  age  of  sheer  mor- 
ality, as  outlined  by  Vico  and  Schiller. 

However  difficult  it  may  be  to  explain  human  morality 
with  any  set  historical  plan,  it  is  obvious  that  the  prindples 
which  man  has  used  to  guide  his  conduct  must  have  some 
reference  to  the  complete  course  of  his  life,  so  that  instead 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  183 

of  asserting  that  there  is  a  rationalistic  way  of  treating  ethics, 
it  seems  wiser  to  survey  this  type  as  the  memorial  of  an  actual 
condition  of  life  which,  before  the  dawn  of  theoretical  ethics, 
controlled  the  striving  of  humanity.     Hence,  we  have  before 
us,  not  the  tenets  of  a  certain  school  of  ethics,  but  the  de- 
veloped principles  of  a  definite  period  in  human  history ;  and 
just  as  there  is  a  sense  in  which  we  are  all  eudaemonists, 
so  It  is  equally  true  that,  owing  to  the  influence  of  history, 
we  are   all   rigorists,   although   neither  view  expresses   the 
manifest  plan  of  life  inevitably  pursued  by  a  species  destined 
to  achieve,  neither  eudaemonism  nor  rigorism,  but  humanism. 
Meanwhile,  we  are  in  a  position  to  appreciate  the  in- 
fluence of  the  characteristic  view  of  life,  and  while  the  sys- 
tematic treatment  of  this  honored  school  may  reveal  weakness 
in   the   intuitional   method   employed,   and   show   that   there 
is  no  such  rationalistic  demonstration  of  morality  as  the  school 
has  always  urged,   it  is  calculated   to  compensate   for  this 
injury  by  pointing  out  how  strong  is  the  rigoristic  conclu- 
sion    that    life    consists    in     renunciation.       Humanity    is 
strangely  adapted  to  the  melancholy  plan,  and  the  human 
will  is  as  skillful  in  its  presence  of  defeat  as  when  enjoying 
victory.      For,   as  the   forces  of  optimism   unite   to   further 
eudaemonia,    the    inference   of    pessimism    does   not    fail   to 
count   in    favor   of   ataraxia.      This  condition   of   affairs   is 
brought  about  by  the  fact  that  characteristic  ethics  is  not 
strong  on  the  purely  psychological  side,  as  is  shown  when 
it  appeals  to  a  special  class  of  mental  forms  called  "intui- 
tions";   intuitionism    is    advanced    in    the    face    of    weak 
psychology  and  faulty  logic.     But  on  the  ethical  side,  this 
theory,  which  is  not  so  much  a  direct  as  a  derivative  product 
of  nature,  is  linked  with  the  ideal,  and  its  moral  categories 
of  right  and  duty  seem  to  be  incontrovertible.     Hence  the 
intuitionist   reposes   in   the   ethical   security   of   his   intrinsic 
moral  principles,  while  he  uses  his  activities  to  show  how 
natural  are  his  premises.     It  is  the  demonstration  of  charter- 
istic  ethics   that   occasions   the   difficulty,   and   a  calm   con- 
sideration of  the  claims  which  are  put  forth  in  behalf  of 
conscience  will  lead  the  unprejudiced  thinker  to  see  that,  as 
with   the   hedonist,    "proof"   does  not  lend   itself  to  either 
utility  or  virtue. 


i84  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

From  this  secondary  form  of  ethics  we  are  led  to  see  the 
dignity  of  the  moral  life,  although  the  school  which  furthers 
this  notion  has  no  way  of  demonstrating  its  human  value. 
At  the  same  time,  it  furnishes  an  ethical  estimate  of  human 
striving  with  the  ideal  of  intrinsic  morality ;  for  it  detaches 
virtue  from  its  original  position  and  looks  upon  it  for  its  own 
sake.  For  this  reason,  we  style  the  method  that  of  "char- 
acteristic" ethics.  Without  as  yet  raising  the  question  whe- 
ther, in  opposition  to  eudaemonism,  it  is  wise  to  abandon  our 
native  immediacy  and  consider  man  as  though  he  lived  unto 
himself  alone,  we  may  notice  that  this  is  what  the  character- 
istic theory  attempts  to  do,  and  most  of  its  arguments,  instead 
of  being  directed  toward  evincing  the  value  of  virtue  as  such, 
are  turned  against  the  hedonic  standard  of  useful  or  in- 
terested morality.  However  artificial  the  school  of  con- 
science-duty may  turn  out  to  be,  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
it  has  surpassed  hedonism  in  portraying  the  ideal  side  of 
man's  moral  striving. 

The  academic  result  of  characteristic  ethics  has  been  to 
formulate  ethics  as  a  distinct  science.  With  such  naturistic 
principles  as  pleasure,  desire,  and  happiness,  there  would  be 
no  foundation  for  an  ethical  view  of  life;  but  with  deter- 
minate ideals,  like  goodness,  virtue,  duty,  it  is  not  content  to 
survey  human  life  in  the  form  of  morality.  In  the  con- 
sciousness of  man,  characteristic  ethics  has  indicated  a  moral 
limen ;  indeed  it  is  in  connection  with  this  school  that  we  find 
an  ethical  field  in  the  form  of  moral  consciousness  or  con- 
science. In  this  way,  man  has  found  it  possible  to  live  apart 
from  nature  with  interests  which,  if  not  ultimate,  are  suffi- 
ciently remote  to  authorize  a  new  departure  in  the  form  of  a 
Moral^  orld-order,  discernible  in  Plato's  idealism  and 
Fichte's  voluntarism.  Characteristic  ethics  thus  indicates  a 
breach  with  nature  and  the  parallel  development  of  a  world 
of  custom.  The  philological  value  of  the  term  custom  in 
suggesting  such  roots  as  have  produced  ethics  and  morality 
is  too  obvious  to  require  anything  more  than  passing  recog- 
nition. 

In  its  traditional  form,  the  school  of  characteristic  ethics 
has  shown  dependence  upon  custom  by  identifying  its  intui- 
tions with  established  customs  and  recognized  virtues.    The 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  185 

side-conflict  between  things  ^wrct  and  B«ru  need  not  be 
allowed  to  demonstrate  the  field  and  thus  falsely  persuade 
us  that  characteristic  intuitions  are  subtended  by  as  many 
distinctions  in  the  world  of  reality.  In  antiquity,  with  the 
Sophist  who  originated  it,  the  view  of  virtue  was  not  ad- 
vanced in  favor  of  any  rationalizing  morality,  but  the  con- 
trary; while  Cynic  and  Stoic,  who  had  the  advantage  of 
Socrates'  moral  concepts,  did  not  ally  this  notion  of  nature 
with  any  plan  of  intuitions.  Cudworth,  who  rehabilitates 
the  distinction  in  modern  times,  is  unable  to  fill  out  the  con- 
tent of  the  abstract,  and  can  only  dogmatize  in  behalf  of  a 
morality  which  is  <^v<ra  xat  dxtn/ro?  ( Eternal  and  Immutable 
.Morality,  Bk.  i.  Ch.  i-iii,  etc).  Later  Scotch  philosophy 
further  confessed  the  conventional  character  of  their  intui- 
tions when  they  based  them  upon  "common-sense  morality," 
whose  origin  was  to  be  found,  not  in  reason,  but  in  experi- 
ence. 

Nevertheless,  if  one  is  not  especially  pledged  to  intuition- 
ism,  which  demands  that  human  ideals  shidl  be  sun-clear, 
he  is  in  a  position  to  observe  how  the  transmutation  from 
nature  to  ethics  was  brought  about.     It  was  by  means  of 
custom.     Surely  the  intuitionist,  who  urges  that  ethical  re- 
lations hold,  not  <^w7a,  but  dco-ct,  does  not  mean  that  the 
world    of    nature    contains    the    material    of    the    virtues 
or  the  form  of  the  good.     Common-sense  morality  stands  for 
that  which  is  established,  and  assumes  the  form  of  something 
conventional;  for  which  reason  it  does  not  become  the  in- 
tuitionist as  much  as  the  hedonist  to  assume  any  intimate 
relations  with  the  natural  order,  which  is  a  hedonic  one. 
The  strength  of  characteristic  ethics  lies  in  an  established 
morality   which   is  styled   the   ethics  of  common-sense,   al- 
though such  terminology  may  be  misleading ;  and  inasmuch 
as  characteristic  ethics  arises  as  something  derivative,  when 
humanity    detaches   itself    from    the   natural   order   of    im- 
mediacy in  time  and  space,  it  is  not  wholly  consistent  in  its 
advocate  to  look  upon  it  as  something  eternal  and  immu- 
table.    Intuitions  are  traditions  which  by  being  deep-seated 
easily  pass  as  symbols  of  eternal  verities,  but  history  has  wit- 
nessed their  rise  while  its  special  periods  have  experienced 
appropriate  changes  in  the  estimates  set  upon  virtue,  as  the 
change  from  classicism  to  Christianity  shows. 


i86  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

3 THE   TRANSITION    FROM    NATURE   TO   CHARACTER 

From  the  history  of  humanity,  it  is  evident  that  the 
life  of  immediate  interest  is  not  sufficient  to  content  the 
activities  of  a  striving  creature  like  man.  To  experience 
pleasure,  satisfy  desire,  and  cultivate  the  garden  of  imme- 
diacy is  not  enough  to  satisfy  man  as  such;  hence  arise  re- 
mote aims  and  a  course  of  conduct  w^hich  involves  ideal  ac- 
tivities. It  involves  no  rigoristic  considerations  to  see  that 
man  creates  new  duties  and  assumes  new  tasks  when  con- 
fronted by  the  human  world  of  culture  and  civilization. 
These  two  forms  of  expression  contain  the  essence  of  a 
humanity  which  is  now  beyond  desire  and  happiness  in  their 
impulsive  and  immediate  forms.  In  his  culture,  man  assumes 
the  metaphysical  responsibility  of  the  race,  and  decides  that 
it  is  a  derivative  life  of  art  and  science  which  he  proposes  to 
follow  and  enjoy.  In  his  civilization  he  takes  upon  him  a 
moral  burden,  for  he  proposes  to  live  according  to  virtue 
instead  of  pleasure,  and  thus  creates  great  ethical  and  reli- 
gious standards.  With  this  development  of  man's  mental 
and  social  life,  it  is  not  expected  that  he  shall  continue  to 
measure  the  meaning  of  his  existence  in  terms  of  animalistic 
interest;  for  his  pleasures  have  become  associated  with  his 
culture-interests  and  his  desires  can  be  fulfilled  only  as  civil- 
ization perfects  itself.  It  needs  no  metaphysical  reflection 
to  show  that  the  Greeks  took  pleasure  in  and  desired  culture 
just  as  the  Romans  had  similar  ambitions  in  the  direction  of 
civilization.  Human  history,  which  is  concerned  with  cus- 
tom, is  a  perpetual  argument  in  favor  of  characteristic 
morality;  and  whether  virtue  contains  a  reminiscence  of 
pleasure  or  not,  it  now  has  a  meaning  of  its  own. 

Much  of  the  antipathy  toward  the  idea  of  transmutation 
in  morality  has  been  due  to  the  tendency  to  make  the  change 
consist  of  something  external  rather  than  internal,  while  the 
range  of  the  development  has  been  greatly  exaggerated.  All 
moral  change  is  something  like  that  which  Leslie  Stephen 
has  styled  "secular  variation",  a  happy  application  of  the  term 
indicated  in  his  table  of  contents,  but  not  incorporated  in 
the  text  (Sci.  of  Eth.  Ch.  iv  §  14).  In  reality,  moral 
transmutation    is    not    akin    to    naturistic   evolution,    but    is 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  187 

rather  a  transmutation  of  experience  in  human  consciousness 
and  kept  well  within  the  borders  of  humanity.  It  is  in- 
conceivable that  ethical  judgments  should  ever  be  the  same 
for  all  peoples  m  all  periods  of  human  history.  Humanity 
produces  its  ideals  gradually  in  connection  with  a  long  pro- 
cess of  self-realization,  and  we  should  not  expect  to  find 
the  cardinal  virtues  among  savages.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
It  be  claimed  that  the  idea  of  change  is  untenable  in  moral 
discussions,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  same  idea  has 
always  been  difficult  in  metaphysical  discussions,  so  that  the 
situation  in  the  intuitional  school  is  by  no  means  extraor- 
dinary, much  less  does  it  warrant  any  special  privileges  to  the 
advocate  of  fixed  morality.  There  is  something  suggestive 
in  the  immutable  ethical  concepts  of  an  ancient  Euclid  and  a 
modern  Cudworth,  but  their  static  moralism  has  not  guided 
European  philosophy  in  its  characteristic  ethics. 

The  substantial  bond  between  the  first  period  and  the 
second  is  found  in  the  continuity  of  human  striving,  which 
embraces  the  naturistic  desire  for  happiness  as  well  as  the 
characteristic  demand  for  perfection.  Hence  the  community 
of  ethical  theories  is  to  be  found  in  the  unity  of  human  life, 
and  we  are  under  no  more  obligation  to  explain  the  problem 
of  ethical  progress  than  to  explain  the  evolution  of  human 
history  which  we  accept  as  a  fact  and  philosophize  accord- 
ingly. What  characteristic  ethics  needs  is  to  see  that 
morality  has  developed  without  and  within,  a  truth  that 
finds  a  secure  place  in  the  unity  of  human  striving.  Pro- 
gress in  ethical  consciousness  does  not  imply  that  vice  has 
become  virtue,  but  simply  indicates  that  human  values  have 
risen  from  the  lower  realm  of  sense  to  the  higher  one  of  idea. 
Hence  it  is  the  inwardness  of  ethical  progress  which  proposes 
the  problem  and  promises  its  solution.  Sensation  is  trans- 
ferred into  ideation,  perception  into  conception,  and  by 
what  process?  It  is  memory  which  reproduces  the  external 
impression  as  an  internal  image  in  a  mind  which  by  its  func- 
tion of  attention  is  adapted  to  noticing  the  community  in  the 
two  forms  of  cognition.  Memory  and  attention  serve,  like- 
wise, in  changing  percepts  into  concepts,  whereby  the  con- 
crete is  represented  by  the  abstract.  Now  the  attentive 
activity  of  the  mind  employs  memory  in  connection  with  the 


i88  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

transition  from  naturistic  to  characteristic  morality.  Cogni- 
tion preserves  its  unity  in  the  midst  of  sensation  and  idea, 
percept  and  concept,  and  the  ethical  consciousness  of  mankind 
is  as  successful  in  the  historical  change  from  outer  to  inner 
interest. 

In  the  midst  of  his  particular  moral  codes,  man  is  still 
human,  and  his  principle  of  desire,  active  upon  the  plane 
of  nature,  is  animated  by  the  motive  of  self-realization  as 
a  creature,  while  later  his  ideal  of  duty  assumes  the  same 
significance,  inasmuch  as  man  now  strives  after  self-realiza- 
tion as  a  character.  The  Spartan  will  be  brave,  the  Athenian 
wise,  the  Roman  just;  humanity  thus  realizes  itself  in  the 
manifold,  while  the  various  virtues  unite  in  the  human  spirit 
which  evokes  them.  Honesty  cannot  be  without  some  refer- 
ence to  the  economic  order,  veracity  is  a  virtue  in  connection 
with  its  social  significance,  while  justice  and  benevolence 
arise  as  they  are  demanded  by  progressive,  perfecting  hu- 
manity which  is  the  center  about  which  these  relative  prin- 
ciples revolve.  Man  maintains  his  humanity  in  the  midst 
of  change,  and  the  same  striving  for  realization  appears  in 
connection  with  the  incentives  of  sensation  and  the  motives 
of  ideation,  in  the  age  of  nature  and  the  age  of  culture.  The 
contrast  between  hedonism  and  intuitionism,  therefore,  is  no 
complete  one  which  excludes  community,  for  these  constitute 
a  parallelism  of  humanity  which  itself  has  not  received 
adequate  recognition.  Man  is  superior  to  desire  and  duty, 
and  will  not  follow  concrete  pleasure  or  abstract  duty;  he  is 
in  the  world  to  achieve  his  humanity,  and  thus  these  other 
principles  act  only  eccentrically  upon  him. 

The  characteristic  theory  of  morality  is  expressed  directly 
in  intuitionism,  indirectly  in  rigorism.  In  the  first  instance 
we  have  a  theory  of  life  so  far  as  its  ethical  ideals  are  con- 
cerned ;  in  the  second,  there  appears  an  attitude  towards  life 
as  something  which  must  be  lived  as  well  as  surveyed  in 
thought.  Our  examination  of  these  principles  will  exhibit 
more  than  one  point  of  contrast  with  the  naturistic  school, 
while  it  will  serve  to  bring  out  the  underlying  principle  of 
humanity.  Like  every  other  philosophical  scheme,  character- 
istic ethics  must  reveal  a  consistency  with  its  own  principles, 
as  well  as  adaptability  to  the  general  plan  manifest  in  our 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  189 

human  striving,  and  it  will  be  approved  to  the  degree  of 
perfection  with  which  it  meets  this  double  demand. 

4 — CHARACTERISTIC    ETHICS    AS    INTUITIONISM 

Just  as  the  complementary  term  hedonism  is  so  partial 
and  exclusive  as  to  indicate  but  a  phase  of  naturistic  ethics, 
so  "mtuitionism"  must  be  accepted  as  a  word  which  merely 
^mbolizes  the  preliminary  form  of  characteristic  ethics. 
The  unfoldmg  of  this  second  form  will  be  seen  to  follow  the 
analogy  of  the  first  one,  in  that  an  abrupt  departure  will  be 
made  from  passive  intuitionism  to  the  active  principle  of 
duty,  as  was  the  case  with  hedonism  which  showed  how 
necessary  it  was  to  find  the  secret  of  immediate  activity  in 
desire.  Under  the  head  of  intuitionism,  therefore,  we  must 
include  two  forms  of  characteristic  morality;  one  centers  in 
conscience  which  is  finally  expressed  as  a  judgment  of  life, 
the  other  in  freedom,  which  generates  the  law  of  duty.  Be- 
fore this  dual  problem  of  characteristic  ethics  may  be  dis- 
cussed, the  fuller  meaning  of  intuition  must  be  subjected  to 
examination.  Here  it  will  be  found  that  the  theory  in  ques- 
tion reveals  as  much  opposition  to  the  idea  of  development  in 
morality  as  favor  to  its  supremacy  in  human  life.  The 
^  intuition  ,  which  implies  nothing  in  the  way  of  excellence, 
is  invented  to  offset  any  explanation  of  ethical  ideals,  and 
to  yield  immediate  certainty  and  complete  conviction. 

The  psychology  of  intuition,  which  has  received  satis- 
factory treatment  in  aesthetics,  has  not  been  as  successful  in 
the  field  of  ethics,  and  the  possibilities  which  this  form  of 
knowledge  presents  have  been  overlooked  in  the  interests  of 
a  very  doubtful  element  called  "common-sense."  In  modern 
philosophy,  Spinoza,  Richard  Price,  and  Kant  have  called 
attention  to  the  emphatic  position  which  intuition  occupies 
midway  between  sense  and  reason.  The  Ethics  of  Spinoza 
departs  from  its  rationalism  sufficiently  to  entertain '  the 
possibility  of  a  third  kind  of  knowledge  which  he  calls 
scwntia  intuitiva,  the  discussion  of  which  is  carried  on  in 
the  fifth  part  of  the  work  (Props,  xxv-xxxviii),  wherein 
It  IS  shown  that  intuition  arises  as  the  highest  endeavor  of 
the  mind    (xxv),   where   it  promotes  the  highest   kind   of 


I90  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

acquiescence  (xxvii),  and  represents  reality  under  the 
form  of  eternity  (xxxi).  Price  uses  the  English  term 
"intuition"  and  develops  it  under  the  opposing  influences  of 
Locke's  empiricism  and  Cudworth's  rationalism.  Kant's 
complete  view  of  Anschauung  developed  in  the  Kritik,  finds 
a  place  in  his  theory  of  beauty,  and  the  treatment  of  the 
problem  in  the  ''Transcendental  Aesthetic"  indicates  how 
close  is  the  connection  between  the  critical  and  aesthetical 
forms  of  his  system.  Where  one  deduces  time  and  space, 
as  forms  of  knowledge  derived  neither  from  sense  nor  un- 
derstanding, the  other  develops  taste  and  beauty  as  forms  of 
sense  which  are  universal,  although  without  concepts.  Kant's 
ethical  system  makes  no  provision  for  such  a  method  of  treat- 
ment, and  it  is  only  by  accommodation  that  we  may  call  it 
intuitionism.  Its  point  of  departure  is  not  the  understand- 
ing, but  the  will,  while  its  influence  is  rigoristic  rather  than 
intuitional. 

Genuine  intuitionism,  whose  principles  were  indicated 
in  three  forms  of  modern  philosophy,  has  enjoyed  no  affilia- 
tion with  the  minor  moral  theory  which  bears  the  name. 
This  school  has  exhibited  intuition  as  a  noli  me  tangere,  and 
in  its  endeavor  to  place  moral  truth  beyond  dispute,  it  has 
placed  it  beyond  reason.  The  result  of  such  a  method  has 
been  to  produce  fixed  ideas,  whereby  conscience  has  under- 
gone petrifaction  and  duty  has  shown  rigor  mortis.  No  de- 
scriptive psychology  was  permitted  to  explain  this  esoteric 
faculty;  no  theory  of  knowledge  was  suffered  to  approach 
the  oracle.  Meanwhile,  mental  interest  has  been  baflfled,  and 
the  matter  is  made  more  than  usually  provoking  because 
the  problem  whose  solution  is  so  important  to  man,  does 
not  seem  to  be  so  abysmal  after  all ;  for  the  mind  which  can 
discuss  the  forms  of  outer  sense,  like  space  and  time,  seems 
able  to  carry  on  its  discussion  within  where  are  found  the 
internal  senses  of  beauty  and  conscience.  Life  is  not  all 
ethics,  ethics  is  not  all  conscience;  and  it  is  only  the  minor 
morality  which  puts  the  moral  sense  in  the  supreme  position. 
In  the  presence  of  living,  growing  humanity,  ethics  must 
break  the  silence,  come  out  of  its  seclusion  and  seek  to  come 
abreast  of  the  world. 


II 

CHARACTERISTIC  ETHICS  AND  CONSCIENCE 


I — THE  MORAL  SENSE  AND  PLEASURE 

However  different  In  content  and  value,  both  pleasure 
and  conscience,  which  make  possible  the  two  forms  of  mor- 
ality called  hedonism  and  intuitionism,  must  be  treated  as 
though  they  were  organic  to  human  nature  in  the  form  of 
sense.    Their  place  is  found  in  immediacy  and  it  is  by  virtue 
of  their   felt  quality  that  they  dominate  the  mind.     Both 
arc  concerned  with  individual  interest,  so  that  egoism  may 
arise  in  connection  with  either  one  or  the  other;  Butler  puts 
conscience  and  self-love  upon  the  same  plane.    The  progress 
of  hedonism  was  such  as  to  suggest  the  necessity  of  some- 
thing more  than  pleasure,  and  at  the  risk  of  inconsistency, 
the  school  made  room  for  another  sense  than  that  of  pleasure 
in  the  form  of  altruism  and  that  of  morallsm.    Even  the  ego 
feels  constrained  to  recognize  the  other  ego,  and  cannot  blind 
his  eyes  to  the  fact  that  imperceptible  influences,  in  the  form 
of  detached  ethical  ideals,  are  working  upon  him.     Of  the 
two  contrasted  senses,  neither  one  of  which  is  final,  however 
incontrovertible  its  testimony  may  be,  pleasure  relates  man 
to  the  world  of  nature,  conscience  connects  him  with  the 
world  of  humanity.     Just  as  pleasure,  which  has  such  an 
inordinate  influence  within  our  minds,  seems  explicable  only 
when  we  survey  it  as  the  point  whose  nature  concentrates 
her  influence  over  us,  so  conscience,  with  its  extra-intensity, 
appears  to  be  the  vulnerable  spot  which  the  individual  pre- 
sents toward  humanity.     Conscience  further  contrasts  with 
the  sense  of  pleasure  upon  the  active  as  well  as  the  passive 
side.     As  a  sense,  pleasure  lends  itself  to  activity  and  the 
exercises  of  power;  it  draws  the  Individual  out  in  the  world 
of  sense.     Conscience  usually  acts  in  a  negative  manner  and 
restrains   the   individual's   powers,   so   that   he   who   would 
succeed  must  not  be  too  conscientious. 

191 


192  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

So  careful  is  intuitionism  with   its  terminology  that  a 
survey  of  the  rise  and  development  of  "conscience"  cannot 
fail  to  clarify  the  principles  of  the  theory.     For  the  most 
part,  Grecian  ethics  succeeded  in  aligning  the  ideals  of  life 
without  the  aid  of  this  factor,  and  it  was  not  until  the  de- 
cline of  ancient  speculation  and  the  commingh'ng  of  Greek 
with  Roman  philosophy  that  conscience  appeared.     In  itself, 
conscience  is  an  ideal  of  decadent  morality.     According  to 
Stobaeus   (p.    192,   21),   the  term  occurs  in   Periander  and 
Bios.     Diodorous  (iv.  657)  uses  it  to  indicate  consciousness 
as  a  whole.     In  speaking  of  the  powers  of  kings  with  their 
equipment  to  reprove  and  punish,  Epictetus  says,  "but  to  a 
Cynic,  instead  of  arms  and  guards,  it  is  conscience  ((rvveiSos) 
which   gives  this  power."     (Bk.   iii.   Ch.   xxi).       Here   is 
myolved  more  psychological   penetration,   inasmuch   as  con- 
science is  seen  to  imply  compunction.     The  same  inward- 
ness characterizes  Cicero,  who  further  elucidates  the  effect 
of  remorse.      "The  guilty  therefore  must  pay  the   penalty 
and   bear  the  punishment;  not  so  much   those  punishments 
inflicted  by  courts  of  justice,   but  of  conscience,  while  the 
furies  pursue  and  torment  them,  not  with  burning  torches, 
but  with  remorse  of  Conscience."        (Laws  i.   14).       Con- 
science was  never  more   than   an  eccentric  element   in   the 
ethics  of  Stoicism,  w^hile  in  modern  ethics  its  position  is  not 
the  highest  one  among  ethical  categories. 

With  all  its  security  in  human  nature,  conscience  is  not 
a  category  but  a  sentiment.  The  treatment  of  conscience 
from  the  beginning  of  modern  ethics  has  been  in  the  form  of 
a  sense,  so  that  hedonists  have  not  hesitated  to  employ  it  or 
rigorists  to  reject  it  as  a  final  arbiter.  Shaftesbury,  who 
classifies  human  impulses  as  ( i )  natural  public  affections; 
(2)  natural  private  affections;  (3)  unnatural  affections  (In- 
quiry, Bk.  II.  pt.  I,  §  3),  finds  it  feasible  to  add  a  moral 
sense  which  he  styles  a  "displeasing  consciousness"  and  "re- 
ligious conscience."  (lb.  Bk.  11.  pt.  2,  §  i).  Butler,  who 
adopts  this  fourfold  division  of  human  nature  and  applies 
it  to  the  interests  of  the  intuitional  school,  raises  conscience 
to  a  commanding  position  but  does  not  fail  to  put  reasonable 
self-love  upon  the  same  level,  which  is  possible  for  him 
inasmuch  as  he  believes  that  both  dictate  what  is  in  accord- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  193 

ance  with  nature.  In  the  treatment  of  the  moral  sense,  he 
and  Shaftesbury  are  practically  agreed.  The  same  leveling 
tendency  appears  with  Hume  and  Kant,  who  show  more 
academic  division  than  Butler  and  Shaftesbury.  Hume's 
heteronomy  and  hedonism  do  not  forbid  his  assertion  that 
moral  distinctions  come  from  a  "moral  sense"  (Treatise, 
Bk.  III.  pt.  I,  Sec.  11).  Kant  rejects  the  notion  that  the 
fundamental  moral  principle  can  reside  in  feeling,  and  con- 
temptuously observes  that  a  "supposed  special  sense"  is  ap- 
pealed to  only  by  those  who  cannot  think,  but  can  only 
feel.  (Meta.  d.  Sitten,  s.  75).  This  sense,  like  that  of 
self-love,  is  false  since  it  fails  to  rest  upon  reason  which 
furnishes  man  with  the  principles  of  morality  (lb.  s.  152)  ; 
conscience,  however,  is  a  judicial  function  whose  source  is  in 
reason  alone  (lb.  s.  230).  Kant's  departure  from  con- 
science is  a  special  sense  to  conscience  as  reason  is  but  the 
counterpart  of  Hume's  abandonment  of  reason  for  the  sake 
of  this  more  natural  moral  principle ;  both  show  how  natural 
it  is  to  regard  conscience  as  a  sentiment. 

The  progress  of  hedonism  and  intuitionism  reveals  the 
same  subordination  of  conscience  to  the  field  of  sense.  T.  H. 
Green  ascribes  to  it  the  general  function  of  arousing  moral 
aspiration,  and  does  not  regard  it  as  the  arbiter  of  moral 
values,  (Prolegomena,  §  306),  just  as  he  admits  that,  where 
a  man  cannot  be  too  good,  he  can  be  too  conscientious, 
(lb.  §  297).  As  an  advanced  intuitionist,  he  is  as  little 
inclined  to  deify  conscience  as  the  enlightened  Sidgwick 
was  to  exalt  happiness.  Where  one  regards  conscience  as 
influential,  the  other  believes  virtue  to  have  a  "felicific  ten- 
dency" (Methods  of  Eth.  Bk.  iv,  Ch.  iii.  §1).  Parallel 
to  this  patronizing  view  of  conscience  on  the  part  of  Green 
is  Leslie  Stephen's  adoption  of  the  principle  as  a  part  of  his 
naturalistic  creed.  (Science  of  Ethics,  Ch.  viii)  ;  indeed, 
this  advocate  of  the  "social  organism"  goes  so  far  as  to 
regard  conscience  as  a  "judgment  of  the  whole  character" 
(lb.  p.  316),  and  yet  relegates  it  to  naturistic  consciousness 
by  making  it  to  consist  very  largely  of  a  sense  of  shame, 
(lb.  Ch.  viii,  §  2). 

If  these  thinkers  are  at  all  typical  they  illustrate  that 
tendency  on  the  part  of  our  opposed  theories  to  fuse,  as  they 


194  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

suggest  that  their  agreement  upon  the  subject  of  conscience 
IS  due  to  the  fact  that  conscience  is  a  sense,  not  a  rational 
judgment.  Hence,  hedonists  may  rise  to  its  level  without 
endangering  their  naturistic  views,  because  intuitionism  has 
placed  it  in  such  a  low  position.  That  conscience  is  a  sense, 
rather  than  a  dictum  of  reason,  seems  to  be  implied  further 
in  the  plea  for  conscience  as  something  intuitive.  Now,  of 
all  our  mental  concerns,  those  of  reason  are  least  likely  to  be 
mtuitive,  since  these  are  based  upon  concepts  which  are 
formed  by  generalization,  judgments  trained  according  to 
law,  and  inferences  drawn  from  rule ;  while  the  products  of 
sense  in  their  simplicity  and  immediacy  are  more  inclined 
toward  the  intuitive  phase  of  consciousness. 

Here  it  may  be  asked  how  the  idea  of  conscience  adapts 
Itself  to  the  notion  of  intuition  which  is  current  in  aesthetics. 
At  first  sight,  it  seems  as  though  the  latter  claimed  all  the 
honor  of  this  style  of  thinking,  just  as  it  bore  the  respon- 
sibility of  it,  but  further  reflection  tends  to  show  how  ethics 
participates  with  aesthetics  in  this  tertiary  form  of  human 
knowledge.     Do  we  have  an  emotion  to  explain  or  a  judg- 
ment to  justify?     It  would  seem  then  as  though  conscience 
were  best  understood  as  a  sense  known  to  consciousness  as 
an  immediate  feeling;  from  this,  judgments  may  be  elabo- 
rated just  as  they  are  in  aesthetics,  where  a  sense  of  ideal 
feeling  enables  the  mind  to  pronounce  judgment  upon  the 
beauty  of  an  object.     Apart  from  an  appreciation  of  man's 
position   in   the   w^orld-whole   of   humanity,   conscience   will 
ever  be  an  unknowable  irritation.     Its  form  is  that  of  extra- 
sensitivity,  and  when  its  function  is  said  to  consist  in  approval 
and  disapproval  its  nature  is  seen  to  be  somewhat  akin  to 
that  of  feeling  with  its  qualities  of  pleasure  and  pain.     To 
the    intuitionist,   who    isolates   conscience    from    the    rest   of 
consciousness,  and  assumes  to  find  in  its  dictates  something 
unwonted  and  authoritative,   it  must  seem  strange  to  find 
that  his  magisterial   faculty  can   use  only  the  language  of 
pleasure-pain,  when  it  turns  "good"  conscience  and   "bad" 
conscience  into  a  pleasant  approval  or  an  unpleasant  disap- 
proval.    These  emotions  are  symptoms  of  our  human  con- 
dition;  they  arise,  not  for  their  own  sake,  but  for  the  sake 
of  the  one  humanity  in  and  about  the  individual. 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  i 

2 — THE   HUMANITY  OF  CONSCIENCE 


95 


The  conception  of  man  that  has  guided  us  thus  far  in 
our  examination  of  human  conduct  puts  us  in  a  position 
where,    with    intellectual   consistency   and    ethical    security, 
we  may  look  upon  human  conscience  as  having  the  form  of 
sense,  whose  significance  is  explicable,  not  in  itself  alone, 
but  in  connection  with  the  enveloping  world  of  humanity. 
1  ne  traditional  view  of  conscience  betrays  a  lack  of  fore- 
shortening which  spoils  the  effect  of  the  picture;  a  normal 
tcature  of  man  s  moral  life  has  been  thrust  forward  in  viola- 
tion of  all  perspective,  and  the  retouching  that  the  theory 
must  undergo  should  occasion  neither  surprise  nor  sadness. 
Again   and  again   we  are  called   upon   to  see  how  man   is 
seeking  to  emancipate   himself   from   his  native   immediacy 
and  effect  the  wholeness  of  his  humanity,  and  hence  we  do 
not  feel  inclined  to  turn  away  from  such  an  interpretation 
i    ![^  J"^  admit  that  all  consists  in  conscience.     A  theory 
ot  life  based  upon  conscience  could  never  account  for  that 
spontaneity  of  human  effort  which,  in  the  midst  of  art  and 
science,  culture  and  civilization,  preserves  its  spiritual  unity. 
Conscience  is  as  necessary  to  man  as  feeling,  but  approval 
and  disapproval  are  no  more  the  sovereign  masters  of  human 
lite  than  pleasure  and  pain. 

The   advocate  of  conscience,   who   felt  that  to  explain 
was  to  explain  away,  does  not  care  to  participate  in  life,  for 
the  first  move  on  the  part  of  the  intuitionist  was  to  render 
conscience  inacessible.     All   this  lay  in  the  thought  of  an 
indisputable  intuition,  beyond  both  sense  and  understanding, 
while  It  involved  a  peculiar  charm  incident   upon   the  air 
of  mystery  which  enveloped  the  subject.     As  King  Melch- 
izedek  was  "without  father  or  mother,  beginning  or  end  of 
days     so  the  royalty  of  conscience  was  made  to  depend  upon 
the  alleged   fact   that  conscience   had   never  had   a  history 
I|  urther    the  case  of  conscience  is  like  that  of   Descartes' 
theory  of  the  seat  of  the  soul,  which  he  found  in  the  pineal 
gland,  where  he  located  the  res  cogitans,  for  the  reason  that 
the  function  of  that  innocent  cerebral  body  would  otherwise 
remain  unknown.     An  important  observer  would  be  likely 
to  declare  that  the  important  item  in  the  argument  con- 


196  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


cerning  the  moral  sense  was  not  the  source,  but  the  sanction 
of  conscience;  that  it  was  not  a  colorless  psychological  ques- 
tion, but  an  acute  ethical  problem.  Nevertheless,  the  ques- 
tion was  raised  and  while  intuitionism  has  lost,  impartial 
ethical  theory  has  gained,  by  the  discussion. 

Between  the  historic  careers  of  these  two  ideas  a  distinct 
parallel  is  to  be  noted.  Christianity  and  Stoicism  together 
produce  the  principles  of  life  in  humanity  in  the  form  of  the 
"Kingdom  of  God"  and  "world-citizenship"  or  cosmopoli- 
tanism. Such  a  development  of  concepts  had  the  effect  of 
quickening  man's  consciousness  of  his  position  in  the  world 
of  humanity  and  did  not  fail  to  connect  itself  with  the  inner 
principle  of  conscience.  With  a  plastic  like  Plato's  Republic, 
there  is  no  room  for  the  contrast  between  individual  and 
humanity,  and  hence  no  place  for  conscience;  although  the 
peculiar  position  of  justice,  which  has  no  root  in  the  three- 
fold division  of  the  world  or  man  and  finds  no  appropriate 
class  to  administer  it  in  the  state,  suggests  the  want  of  some 
such  principle  in  idealistic  ethical  system.  Where  there  is  a 
sense  of  free  humanity  there  is  conscience ;  where  the  ethical 
becomes  universal  it  also  assumes  an  internal  form.  Just  as 
Plato's  politics  does  not  emancipate  humanity  and  let  it 
realize  its  inner  life,  so  Aristotle's  aesthetics  of  moderation 
does  not  admit  of  sufficient  energy  to  provide  a  range  for 
human  activity.  Hence  both  universal  and  inner  ideals  are 
wanting. 

Adam  Smith  was  about  the  first  to  consider  the  ethical 
possibilities  involved  in  the  human  relations  between  man 
and  society,  and  his  view,  as  expressed  in  his  "Theory  of 
Moral  Sentiments",  published  exactly  a  century  before  Dar- 
win's "Origin  of  Species",  or  in  1759,  must  be  regarded  as 
extraordinary,  especially  when  it  is  remembered  that  his 
leading  principle  was  the  simple  feeling  of  sympathy.  Ac- 
cording to  the  theory,  sympathy  is  something  natural  and 
shows  itself  in  the  instinctive  fashion  in  which  we  exchange 
places  with  the  sufferer  ( Pt.  I.  Sect.  i.  Ch.  i).  Such 
sympathy  is  likewise  mutual,  so  that  by  means  of  immediate 
feeling  one  can  estimate  the  contents  of  another's  mind,  and 
thus  by  loving  and  resenting  one  can  judge  of  love  and 
resentment  in  another.     (lb.  Ch.  il).     But  such  sympathy, 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  197 

which   forms   the   bond   between   souls,   is  limited,   and    for 
some  reason  we  cannot  always  respond  to  the  feeling  which 
the  other  person  exhibits  as  his  own.     He  who,  in  the  excess 
of  emotion  longs  for  our  sympathy,  "must  flatten  the  sharp- 
ness of  its  natural  tone  in  order  to  reduce  it  to  harmony 
and  concord  with  the  emotions  of  those  who  are  about  him'* 
(lb.    Ch.   iii-iv).     Now  that   which   limits  sympathy   is  a 
sense   of   propriety.     When   Smith   speaks  of   the   kinds  of 
action,  vv^hich  in  individuals  tend  to  arouse  sympathy  or  to 
prevent  it,  he  introduces  the  higher  notion  of  merit.     Pro- 
priety arises  from  a  direct  sympathy  with  its  feelings  and 
motives  of  the  person  who  acts;  merit  is  occasioned  by  an 
indirect  sympathy  with  the  gratitude  or  resentment  of  the 
person  who  is  acted  upon.     (Pt.  11.  Sect.  i.  Ch.  v).   Where, 
under  the  influence  of  sympathy — natural,  mutual,  limited, — 
propriety  leads  to  merit,  merit  also  leads  to  duty.     In  this 
climax  of  the  moral  theory,  the  author  changes  from  sym- 
pathy with  the  other  to  sympathy  with  the  self,  wherein 
he  finds  it  possible  to  divide  the  ego  into  two  persons,  one 
who   judges  and   the   other   who   is  judged,   and   it   is   the 
"impartial  spectator"  within  the  breast  which  at  last  finds 
itself   in   the   place  of  conscience.     This  judicial   function 
consists  of  sympathy  with  self,  which  produces  self-approval 
(Pt.  III.  Ch.  l)  ;  not  only  does  the  conscience  of  sympathy 
hold   the  position  of  authority    (lb.   Ch.   iii.),   but  it  lays 
down    rules   which   are    the    "commands   and    laws   of   the 
Deity"  (lb.  Ch.  v). 

Darwin  does  not  advance  as  far  as  Adam  Smith  in  urging 
the  divine  character  of  the  moral  law,  yet  he  speaks  of  con- 
science as  equivalent  to  "that  short  but  imperious  word 
ought",  although  his  own  interpretation  seems  to  imply 
merely  the  "consciousness  of  the  existence  of  a  persistent 
instinct"  (Descent  of  Man,  Ch.  iii).  With  his  well- 
marked  social  instincts,  a  mental  ability  to  reproduce  images 
of  past  acts  and  their  consequences,  the  gift  of  language 
which  makes  possible  the  expression  of  popular  opinion,  as 
also  the  principle  of  habit  as  a  guide  for  conduct,  man  ac- 
quires a  moral  sense  whose  basis  is  sociability.  The  supre- 
macy of  the  social  instincts  is  found  in  their  survival  over 
the  purely  selfish  ones,  and  upon  this  princiole  of  persistence 


198  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


the  whole  theory  of  moral  sense  seems  to  hinge.  In  man, 
this  supreme  social  instinct  is  able  to  overcome  the  selfish 
one,  because  it  is  more  definitely  present  in  the  mind  by  way 
of  reflection ;  for  we  are  unable  to  recall  the  feeling  of  hunger 
or  even  the  sense  of  self-preservation,  however  strong  these 
instincts  may  be,  while  our  position  in  the  social  order  keeps 
before  the  mind  distinct  ideas  of  sociability.  When  memory 
compares  the  faint  impressions  of  previous  hunger,  or  other 
personal  instinct  which  has  been  gratified,  with  the  ever- 
present  idea  of  sympathy,  he  feels  as  though  he,  in  his 
selfishness,  has  suffered  a  weak  instinct  to  conquer  a  strong 
one  which  will  occasion  a  sense  of  retribution  within  him. 

Schopenhauer  stands  midway  between  Smith  and  Darwin 
in  time  (1819),  and  transcends  both  of  them  in  the  con- 
sistency of  his  theory  of  conscience.  From  his  philosophical 
point  of  view,  the  contrast  between  the  individual  and  the 
universal  in  the  Will-to-Live  is  the  difference  between  the 
phenomenal  and  real  order  of  things  in  the  world,  so  that 
the  ego  is  not  separated  from  the  life  of  others,  except  in  ap- 
pearance; for  it  is  the  one  will-to-live  which  appears  in 
them  all,  so  that  he  who  does  wrong  is  not  wholly  different 
from  him  who  suffers  that  wrong.  Only  a  veil  of  illusion 
separates  him  who  inflicts  pain  from  him  who  endures  it; 
and  when  this  curtain  is  penetrated  man  becomes  the  victim 
of  his  own  misdeed  in  the  form  of  remorse.  The  "secret 
"presentiment"  that  one  is  not  really  separated  from  the  one 
will-to-live  contains  the  secret  of  conscience,  which  informs 
man  that  in  vicious  action  he  is  really  turning  his  weapon 
upon  himself  and  must  suffer  at  his  own  hands  (Welt  ah 
fVille  u.  Vorstellung,  §  65).  Where  Schopenhauer's  treat- 
ment of  the  problem  is  wanting  in  psychological  elements, 
whose  place  is  taken  by  mythological  ones,  it  is  marked  by 
a  sense  of  that  unity  which  pervades  humanity  expressed  as 
this  is  in  the  form  of  eternal  justice  (§63).  At  the  same 
time  he  is  able  to  explain  away  the  idea  of  a  fixed  egohood 
by  regarding  the  principle  of  individuation  as  illusory. 

There  is  something  about  the  sensitivity  of  human  nature 
that  makes  such  views  of  conscience  plausible  if  not  con- 
vincing.    Where  conscience  itself  as  an  intuition  gives  no 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  199 

explanation  of  its  peculiar  sway  over  man,  it  is  not  out  of 
place  to  suggest  that  instincts  like  sympathy  and  sociabilitj' 
have  some  bearing  upon  the  question  of  approval  and  dis- 
approval, and  when  the  dialectic  of  Schopenhauer  introduces 
the  ego  in  its  individuality  and  the  world  in  its  unity,  we 
feel  that  the  spirit  of  the  theory  is  worthy  and  needs  only  to 
be  related  to  our  consciousness  to  be  acceptable.    These  views 
are  well-meaning  and  will  not  be  confused  with  the  morbid 
sentiments  of  a  Mandeville  or  a  Nietzsche.     "Bad  consci- 
ence" is  something  more  than  that  suggestion  of  inferiority 
vv^hich    Nietzsche's    notion    of    "slave    morality"    would    in- 
sinuate,  while   "good   conscience"   has   about   it   a  sense   of 
healthy  human   approval  which  no  "master  morality"  can 
justify.       Nevertheless,    without    some    broad    rationale    of 
conscience,   the   isolated   and   almost  arbitrary  character  of 
that  inner  sense  is  likely  to  arouse  suspicion  in  the  mind  of 
the  remorseful  man  who  feels  that  he  suffers  unduly,  and 
the   social  explanation  of  the  sense   seems   fraught   with  a 
strange  sense  of  liberation   from  the  ideal.     Our  own  age 
reveals  the  spectacle  of  a  populace  which  had  been  dominated 
by  an  artificial  conception  of  conscience,  but  now  begins  to 
dream  of  liberty  from  convention  and  a  desire  to  re-cast  its 
popular  definitions  of  virtue  and  vice.     To  feel  the  serious- 
ness of   this  crisis,   one   need   only   turn   the   pages  of  our 
decadent  dramatists  to  feel  somewhat  of  the  same  longing  for 
life  as  such  apart  from  the  conventions  of  conscience.     Now 
the  remedy  for  this  unhappy  condition  of  humanity  is  to  be 
found  in  a  more  temperate  view  of  conscience  which  need 
not  be  expected  to  assume  the  whole  burden  of  human  striv- 
ing.    And    then,    with   this   just   limitation   of   a   perfectly 
natural  sense,  there  may  come  a  healthy  explanation  of  it  in 
connection  with  one  humanity  which  evokes  it  in  the  indivi- 
dual's heart. 


3— THE    OUTER    CONFLICT    OF    THE    EGO    WITH    HUMANITY 

Butler  could  do  nothing  with  conscience  and  self-love 
because  he  saw  in  man  only  the  ego  and  the  world  of  nature 
in  which  man  lives.  To  be  in  harmony  with  nature  was 
thus  to  realize   both  the  ego  and   his  conscience,   but  the 


200  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

"magisterial  faculty"  was  still  wanting  in  explanation.  It 
is  humanity,  however,  and  not  nature  which  is  best  adapted 
to  account  for  this  occult  factor.  The  mystery  of  con- 
science is  as  great  as,  but  no  greater  than,  the  mystery  of 
pleasure;  both  are  concerned  with  man's  position  in  the 
human,  natural  order  of  being.  Conscience  is  not  a  purely 
subjective  principle  possessed  by  man  in  his  individuality,  nor 
a  wholly  objective  one  which  belongs  to  the  race.  It  is  a 
sentiment  which  arises  when  the  individual,  whose  humanity 
should  lead  him  to  rise  above  the  natural  order,  somehow 
turns  against  the  world  of  humanity  within  him.  The 
empirical  view  of  conscience,  which  substitutes  emotions 
like  shame  or  sympathy  for  the  fixed,  objective  order  of 
human  being,  does  not  advance  beyond  the  position  this 
occupies  at  the  beginning;  for  instead  of  explaining  con- 
science as  a  philosophical  problem,  it  gives  some  suggestions 
concerning  its  reaction  upon  the  individual.  With  the  em- 
pirical explanation  at  hand,  conscience  still  remains  u  mys- 
tery, although  the  key  to  this  has  been  suggested  in  con- 
nection with  the  order  to  which  man  belongs.  Nature  has 
determined  to  have  man  realize  the  immediate  purpose  of 
his  being,  and  has  thus  given  him  an  abnormal  sense  of 
pleasure  and  pain ;  humanity  has  been  equally  anxious  to 
have  man  fulfill  the  ultimate  demands  of  his  existence,  and 
has  thus  endowed  him  with  a  surplus  of  sensitivity  to  ap- 
proval and  disapproval,  whereby  conscience  has  secured  a 
firm  hold  upon  her  human  subject. 

The  exaggerated  influence  of  conscience  upon  man  makes 
possible  the  dramatic  possibilities  of  the  sentiment,  and 
among  the  other  fundamental  emotions  which  lend  them- 
selves to  the  poet,  the  sense  of  compunction  and  remorse  is 
by  no  means  secondary.  Yet  it  is  the  Christian,  and  not  the 
classic  poet  who  is  permitted  to  avail  himself  of  this  senti- 
ment, since  it  was  first  in  Christianity  that  the  individual 
was  set  in  conscious  relation  to  the  surrounding  order  of 
humanity.  Yet  why  should  conscience  adapt  itself  to  the 
technical  demands  of  the  drama?  The  answer  to  this  is  to 
be  found  in  the  fact  that  conscience  concerns  the  individual's 
relation  to  the  rest  of  the  human  order.  When,  therefore,  the 
drama  attempts  to  solve  its  problem,  which  consists  in  ad- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  201 

justing  the  lyrical  subject  to  the  epic  situation,  it  finds  that 
its  human  character  is  strangely  sensitive  to  a  feeling  of  ap- 
proval and   disapproval  which  arises  within   man  when  he 
acts  in  agreement  or  disagreement  with  the  demands  of  the 
human  order  about  him.     Hence  excessive  emotion  and  ex- 
traordinary action  may  be  produced  by  involving  this  ethical 
form    of   emotionalism.      Conscience    realizes   the    intuitive 
ideal  inasmuch  as  it  assumes  a  universal  form  in  the  midst 
of  common  elements  of  experience.     How  strange  it  is  that, 
when  the  intuitionist  seeks  to  display  the  attributes  of  this 
marvellous  faculty,  he  can  only  adopt  the  hedonic  language 
of  pleasure  and  pain  and  speak  of  a  "sense  of  approval  and 
disapproval"!     Why  should  conscience  express  its  supreme 
dictates  in   such   secular  language  when   it  is  supposed   to 
stand  alone  in  a  sacerdotal  position?     Only  by  an  appeal 
to  sense  may  the  essence  of  conscience  be  expressed,  and  it 
is  here  that  the  emptiness  of  intuitionism  appears  in  its  most 
painful  form.     But,  at  the  same  time,  conscience  turns  ap- 
proval   and    disapproval    into    something   more    than    mere 
pleasure  and  pain.     These  make  possible  judgments  whose 
universal  and  necessary  forms  raise  conscience  to  the  level 
of  a  spiritual  rather  than  a  sensuous  principle,  because  they 
show  that  conscience  is  not  calculated  to  arouse  mere  emo- 
tion, but  to  suggest  ethical  judgments  of  good  and  bad,  and 
long  after  an  individual  has  ceased  to  feel  the  sway  of  con- 
science as  a  source  of  feeling,  he  remains  under  the  dominion 
of  certain  moral  notions  from  which  there  may  seem  to  be 
no  escape. 

In  the  inevitable  conflict  between  the  ego  and  the  world 
of  persons,  the  peculiar  play  of  inner  forces  reveals  some- 
what of  the  operation  of  conscience,  which  does  not  act 
independently  but  avails  itself  of  other  mental  processes. 
The  individual,  whose  pleasure  is  his  own,  who  must  live 
his  own  life,  and  who  is  thus  encased  in  a  natural  form  of 
egohood,  treats  his  own  interests  in  an  intense  fashion  which 
assumes  the  active  and  personal  form  of  passion.  So  vigorous 
is  the  impulse  to  assert  self,  so  immediate  the  interest  of 
self,  and  so  obvious  the  validity  of  self  as  an  idea,  that  it 
would  seem  impossible  for  conscience  to  dislodge  the  ego 
from   its  entrenched   position.      Our   egohood   is   the   most 


202  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

evident  thing  in  the  world.  We  have  no  criterion  of  truth 
or  reality  but  a  subjective  one,  no  sense  of  values  except  the 
immediate  form  of  appreciation  which  is  found  in  the  self. 
Thus,  in  thinking  and  acting,  man  is  at  the  mercy  of  self- 
hood, and  nothing  but  another  and  stronger  form  of  self- 
hood will  drive  him  from  this  position.  Why  the  individual 
should  be  so  sensitive  to  conscience,  why  his  personal  will 
should  bend  before  a  sentiment,  is  so  mysterious  that  the 
intuitionist  has  long  felt  secure  in  his  position  of  invincible 
ignorance. 

Conscience  is  consciousness  of  humanity.  "Good  con- 
science" is  a  sense  of  harmony  with  the  ideal  of  humanity  as 
entertained  by  the  ego  in  its  life  among  persons.  "Bad 
conscience"  is  due  to  a  conflict  between  the  acts  and  desires  of 
the  individual  and  the  ideal  demands  of  the  human  order. 
Thus,  in  a  certain  sense,  conscience  is  consistency.  The 
intuitionist's  hesitation  to  accept  any  explanation  of  con- 
science has  about  it  something  more  than  the  innate  rever- 
ence for  mystery,  for  the  particular  form  of  the  explanatory 
theory  usually  involves  a  departure  from  the  ideal,  inasmuch 
as  the  outstanding  social  order,  which  is  supposed  to  evoke 
the  peculiar  sense  of  ethical  responsibility,  is  surveyed  em- 
pirically as  something  not  wholly  distinct  from  nature. 
Conscience,  however,  is  not  mere  conventionalism,  but  de- 
pends upon  a  harmony  between  the  ethical  subject,  as  he  is 
known  to  himself  in  inner  experience,  and  the  ideal  order 
of  humanity  which  is  above  both  its  social  and  individual 
forms.  A  given  condition  of  society  could  never  evoke  in  the 
individual  the  enduring  influence  of  conscience;  indeed,  a 
fixed  yet  growing  order  of  things  is  the  effect,  not  the  cause, 
of  the  world  of  conscience.  Naturistic  ethics  is  anxious  to 
relate  its  subject  to  some  kind  of  an  order,  hence  it  speaks 
of  a  compact-theory  by  which  it  seeks  to  account  for  man's 
responsibility  to  an  external  system.  Opponents  of  the 
notion  of  social  contract  emphasize  the  inherent  and  ra- 
tional t-alidity  of  conscience,  but  none  the  less  do  they  postu- 
late an  order  of  things  which  can  only  be  regarded  as  the 
world  of  conscience. 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  203 

4 — THB   INNER   CONFLICT   BETWEEN   SENTIMENT   AND   PAS- 
SION 

In  the  history  of  ethics,  it  was  the  idea  of  humanity 
which,  in  Christianity  and  Stoicism,  made  possible  a  sense 
of    conscience.      Modern    thought    realized    this    in    theory 
when    it   considered    the   ego   apart    from   society   and   saw 
how  influential  was  the  sense  of  human  sympathy.     Yet  this 
contrast  between  two  conflicting  views  of  the  human  order 
is  not   a  purely  external  one   which  may  be  surveyed   ob- 
jectively; it  is  real  and  internal  and  is  capable  of  consistent 
psychological  expression.    The  appeal  of  self  to  man  is  direct 
and    vigorous   coming   through    the   will;    the    influence   of 
society   is   indirect   and   correspondingly  weak   in   the   form 
of  intellectualism  which  it  assumes.     Such  a  distinction  in- 
volves the  contrast  between  sentiment  and  passion.     In  man, 
the  conflict  between  ego  and  world  is  thus  an  internal  one  in 
which   the   individual   is  represented   by  passion,   society  by 
sentiment.     These  two  moments  of  human  emotion  may  be 
distinguished  by  observing  that  passion  is  made  up  of  feeling 
and  will,  where  sentiment  combines  feeling  and  idea.     In 
the  vigorous  form  which  human  life  assumes  in  the  midst 
of  the  rude  forces  of  nature,  where  the  struggle  to  live  in- 
volves constant  action   on  the   part  of   the  ego,   it  would 
seem   as   though    altruistic   sentiments   were    destined    to   be 
ignored  by  the  individual  in  his  personal  life.     But  nature 
has  guarded  the  interests  of  the  species,  while  humanity  has 
made  it  necessary  for  man  to  consider  more  than  his  private 
interests.      Where   egoistic   passion   is   marked   by   intensity, 
social  sentiment  is  enduring,   and  however  strong  the  im- 
mediate action  of  the  will  may  be,  the  mind  is  able  to  subdue 
it  by  means  of  the  attribute  of  duration.     At  this  time,  we 
do  not  raise  the  question  whether  natural  will  or  rational 
reflection  is  destined  to  rule  the  world  of  persons,  but  simply 
point  to  the  case  of  conscience  as  evidence  of  the  supremacy 
of  intellect  in  the  form  of  social  sentiment. 

Owing  to  the  peculiar  steadfastness  of  reason,  the  fierce 
attacks  of  egoistic  passion  are  withstood  by  the  prevailing 
sentiment  of  a  world  of  persons.  He  who  would  inflict 
his    selfish    purposes    upon    mankind    must    break    through 


204  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

the  confines  of  the  world  of  humanity,  as  this  is  indelibly 
written  upon  his  own  mind.  That  which  produced  the 
individual  and  gave  his  life  its  significance  is  not  likely  to 
leave  him  to  his  own  devices,  nor  will  it  set  him  adrift  in  his 
individuality  w^'thout  advising  him  as  to  the  order  to  which 
he  belongs.  Hence,  man  cannot  live  without  considering  his 
human  environment,  the  consciousness  of  which  is  ever  ready 
to  arise  in  stinging  contrast  to  the  petty  plans  which  the 
narrow-minded  individual  is  seeking  to  carry  out.  Man's 
impulses  come  and  go  upon  occasion,  but  his  place  in  society 
is  a  steadfast  one,  the  consciousness  of  which  is  ever  deepen- 
ing. Memory  retains  a  vast  array  of  ideas  which  lead  the 
individual  to  recall  the  order  to  which  he  belongs,  as  well 
as  the  way  in  which  moral  cause  and  effect  have  been  active 
in  the  past;  but  this  same  function  of  recollection  does  not 
serve  him  so  well  when  he  seeks  to  review  the  advantages 
of  pleasures  as  he  experienced  them.  In  the  memory  of  man 
the  human  ideal  is  secure  because  sentiments  are  retained 
and  reproduced  in  a  way  that  passions  are  not. 

5 — RESENTMENT  AND  REMORSE 

As  a  special  example  of  this  conflict  between  the  ego  and 
the  world  of  humanity,  we  may  take  the  case  of  anger  or 
resentment.  In  the  passionate  combination  of  feeling  and 
will,  the  emotion  of  anger  blinds  the  individual  to  the 
reality  and  claim  of  the  human  order  as  represented  by  him 
who  is  the  object  of  his  spite,  while  its  intensity  leads  him 
to  exhibit  his  WTath  in  the  form  of  stinging  blow  or  in- 
sulting word.  This  fierce  attack  upon  one's  own  social  senti- 
ment involves  a  warfare  between  an  intense  personal  feeling 
and  a  weak,  yet  enduring,  social  instinct,  with  the  result 
that  the  severer  passion  soon  exhausts  itself,  leaving  the 
field  of  consciousness  to  the  sentiment  which  contains  the 
image  of  all  humanity.  There  enters  in  remorse  in  the 
form  of  a  wounded  social  sentiment,  and  the  individual  is 
stung  by  the  contrast  between  his  vicious  self  and  the  human 
order  which  he  has  sought  to  injure.  Apparently  no  other 
explanation  can  be  found  for  that  mysterious  and  subtle 
sense  of  compunction  which  arises  as  a  contrast  and  conflict 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  205 

between  ego  and   humanity.     Conscience  weakens  the  will 
because  it  represents  the  rich  and  varied  interests  of  society, 
before  which  the  petty  purposes  of  the  individual  seem  vain 
indeed.     What   holds  good   in   the  case  of  anger,   is  valid 
also  for  all  wrong-doing  which  relates  only  to  the  man  in 
his   attitude    toward    the    world.      Only   humanity   can    do 
vvrong  or  be  wronged,   and  he  who  experiences  wrong  in 
either  an  active  or  passive  fashion  finds  it  identified  with 
the   inner  sense  of   his  humanity.      Only  in   humanity  can 
pain   and   pleasure   have   any  ethical   significance,   and   how 
vain  is  it  for  the  hedonic  naturist,  with  his  feeble  equipment 
of  feeling  and  desire,  to  seek  to  explain  the  gigantic  con- 
sciousness of  wrong  which   has  ever   made   its   impression 
upon  poetry  and  religion.     He  who  witnesses  the  display  of 
anger    in    another    is   grieved    at    the    thought   that    an    in- 
dividual  can   so   turn    against   humanity,   even    though   the 
spectator    is    not    personally    injured    by    the    attack.     Even 
he    who    is   the   offended    party    is   able    to    feel   something 
more  than  an  immediate  personal  grievance  in  the  form  of 
a  remote  sense  of  a  wounded  nature,  common  to  both  par- 
ties, which   the  quarrel   involves.     Our  enemies  injure  hu- 
manity through  us  and  we  are  thus  led  to  feel  a  double 
sorrow   incident   upon   the   individual   and   universal  wrong 
w^hich  we  are  suffering. 

The  sentiment  that  conquers  man  is  that  which  involves 
this   worldhood,    and   the   speculative    power   by   which    the 
mind  represents  the  world  of  natural  forms  now  exercises  its 
office  anew  m  bringing  before  the  consciousness  of  the  in- 
dividual the  human  world  of  values.     This  very  difference 
in  quantity,   between   universality  in  the  human  order  and 
particularity   in   the  individual,   is  sufficient  to  arouse  con- 
science  by  contrasting  the  august  plan  of  the  kingdom  of 
humanity    with    the    trifling    gratifications    desired    by    the 
isolated  individual.     Constituted  as  man  is  with  social  capa- 
city, a  sense  of  shame,  sentiment,  and  imagination,  it  is  no 
easy  task  for  him  to  confine  himself  in  the  case  of  egohood 
and   live   out   his  own   life   in   its   littleness.      His   peace   of 
mind  demands  that  he  shall  lose  himself  in  the  total  order 
about   him,   and   acts  of  unselfishness  often   have   no  other 
motive  than  the  desire  on  the  part  of  the  ego  to  lose  sight 


2o6  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

of  himself  for  the  time  being.  The  implicit  sublimity 
of  the  encompassing  human  order  reveals  itself  t?o  thje 
individual  in  forms  of  extensity  and  power,  w^hereby  he  is 
led  to  see  how  insignificant  he  is  in  the  world  of  humanity. 
Egoism  is  possible  only  in  a  system  which  excludes  con- 
sideration of  any  universal  order  for  man,  while  the 
realization  of  a  spiritual  domain  afflicts  the  ego  with  a 
self-hatred  which  can  be  relieved  only  by  an  impersonal 
participation  in  the  full  order  of  human  life. 

In  the  midst  of  this  experience  which,  in  spite  of  its 
sublime  setting,  is  common  in  human  life,  it  will  be  found 
that  conscience  plays  its  part  instinctively  with  a  minimum 
of  intelligence.  He  who  has  once  appreciated  the  warm 
humanity  of  approval  and  disapproval,  and  realizes  with 
what  general  forms  of  expression  the  surrounding  world  of 
humanity  appeals  to  man,  will  never  plague  himself  with 
casuistical  doubts  concerning  the  infallibility  of  conscience. 
Our  knowledge  of  the  natural  world  depends  upon  sense- 
perception  and  in  spite  of  sense-deception  we  know  nature; 
our  knowledge  of  the  human  order  depends  upon  conscience, 
yet  we  know  humanity  through  an  imperfect  sense  of  right 
and  wrong.  An  infallible  conscience  which  ever  dictates 
what  is  right  and  wrong  is  a  chimera,  and  he  who  would 
take  a  simple  human  sense  and  try  to  reduce  it  to  mathe- 
matical exactness  is  far  from  the  spirit  of  the  inner  life.  But 
conscience  gams  rather  than  loses  when,  instead  of  imitating 
the  exact  prismatic  nature  of  the  world  of  outer  forms,  it 
participates  in  the  human  world  of  values. 

6 CONSCIENCE    AND    NON-RESENTMENT 

With  the  recognition  of  conscience  as  the  direct  con- 
sciousness of  humanity,  there  has  arisen  another  principle 
whose  ethical  essence  consists  in  the  same  human  element; 
it  is  the  religious  ideal  of  non-resentment.  Inasmuch  as 
both  spring  from  an  acute  sense  of  humanity,  it  is  advan- 
tageous to  indicate  their  mutual  relation  as  they  participate 
in  a  common  world  of  human  life  and  imply  ideal  obliga- 
tions and  occasion  ideal  pains.  Man's  superiority  to  nature 
comes  out  clearly  in  this  double  sense  of  humanity,  which 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  207 

appears  in  the  presence  of  spiritual  remorse  and  the  absence 
of  natural  resentment ;  were  life  purely  natural  and  humanity 
only  hedonic  there  would  be  no  explanation  for  these  ideal 
standards.  The  presence  of  such  principles  reassures  the 
moralist,  and  convinces  him  that  the  ideals  of  immediacy 
are  not  the  only  ones  in  a  mind  whose  calculations  involve 
considerations  so  remote  from  nature  as  to  lie  within  a 
purely  human  realm  where  they  receive  a  human  value. 
The  fact  of  conscience  and  of  non-resentment  is  evidence 
that  such  a  realm  exists,  and  only  consistent  treatment  of 
these  human  ideals  is  required  to  reduce  such  an  order  to 
consistency. 

The  victory  of  humanity  over  the  ego,  which  society 
achieves  through  conscience,  appears  in  the  religious  principle 
of  non-resentment.  Here  the  individual  is  lifted  out  of 
his  egohood  into  the  pure  and  impersonal  realm  of  humanity, 
whose  value  is  set  up  as  supreme  in  the  world  of  activity. 
Viewed  from  within,  non-resentment  is  the  anticipation  of 
remorse,  and  is  influential  only  in  a  mind  whose  human 
sensibilities  have  been  quickened  in  such  a  way  that  the 
subject  is  able  to  evacuate  the  sense  of  remorse  which  must 
follow  if  he  give  way  to  wrong  or  resentment.  As  an  ideal, 
it  represents  the  climax  of  humanity  in  the  consciousness 
of  man  who  is  enabled  to  see  the  human  order  in  its  unity, 
and  thus  is  led  to  realize  that  resentment  is  wrong  in  itself, 
because  it  must  ever  be  expressed  toward  a  human  creature. 
It  involves  truly  human  values  and  tolerates  no  expediency 
which  would  do  wrong  that  good  might*  come.  Non- 
resentment  is  also  the  perfection  of  conscience,  whose  com- 
mon office  it  is  to  approve  of  right  and  disapprove  of  wrong, 
but  which  now  is  raised  above  the  pettiness  of  such  conflicts 
and  is  allowed  to  suffuse  the  whole  being  of  the  human 
subject.  In  this  manner,  the  ideal  of  non-resentment  in- 
volves a  reversal  of  the  usual  order  of  conscience,  where 
the  aggressor  feels  remorse  for  the  injury  inflicted  upon  his 
fellow;  for  non-resentment  acts  vicariously  as  the  consdencc 
of  the  other  man  who  is  strangely  wanting  in  compunction. 
Where  one's  own  evil  deed  causes  sorrow  in  both  the  doer 
and  sufferer,  inasmuch  as  conscience  repeats  the  pain  in  the 
heart  of  him  who  has  done  wrong,  the  pleasure  which  the 


2o8  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

conscienceless  man  takes  in  injuring  another  is  well  nigh 
reflected  in  the  other  who  resolves  to  feel  no  pain  in  the 
midst  of  his  ill-treatment,  and  refuses  to  suffer  the  wrong 
which  would  naturally  entail  resentment.  Such  is  the  irony 
of  humanity  that,  in  one  case,  it  expresses  a  malicious  pleasure 
in  the  pain  which  another  feels,  and  then  reverses  the  process 
in  the  form  of  another  unnatural  feeling  and  almost  takes 
pleasure  in  contemplating  the  pain  that  another  inflicts  upon 
one.  In  spite  of  the  paradoxical  condition  which  is  involved 
in  this  reversal  of  natural  pain  and  pleasure,  it  is  a  matter 
of  common  experience  that,  with  a  sensible  person,  who, 
through  religion  or  reflection,  has  found  his  place  in  the 
world,  there  is  less  pain  in  the  mind  of  him  who  suffers 
pain  than  in  that  of  him  who  inflicts  it.  Hence  the  con- 
clusion that  it  is  better  to  suffer  wrong  than  to  do  wrong. 

The  peculiar  idealism  which  ever  envelops  the  problem 
of  remorse  toward  self  and  resentment  toward  another  ap- 
pears in  the  form  of  detached  or  disinterested  vices.  These 
unhappy  tendencies,  which  led  Butler  (Sermons,  Preface) 
to  class  them  as  the  lowest  of  passions  because  of  their 
disinterested  nature,  are  recognizable  in  the  form  of  malice 
and  envy.  Where  much  emphasis  is  placed  upon  the  ideal 
in  virtue,  it  is  well  to  consider  the  ideal  in  vice;  that  is,  an 
evil  quality  in  the  subject  which  sets  him  at  variance  with 
another  even  when  no  advantage  accrues  to  the  individual. 
And  in  such  cases  of  disinterested  vice,  the  freedom  of 
humanity  from  nature  and  the  claim  of  immediate  advan- 
tage appear  in  a  form  which  is  as  convincing  as  it  is  dis- 
tressing to  contemplate.  Now  malice  arises  where  one 
takes  pleasure  in  another's  pain,  envy  where  he  feels  pain 
at  another's  pleasure.  Such  unnatural  feelings,  which 
minister  as  little  to  egoism  as  to  altruism,  reveal  man  in 
contrast  to  his  humanity,  where  he  fails  to  assume  a  proper 
relation  to  the  world  which  contains  him.  In  his  inability 
or  unwillingness  to  assume  universal  interests  which  would 
unify  him  with  the  world  of  humanity,  he  feels  these 
passions  which  are  all  too  human  and  wholly  unknown  in 
nature.  Man's  very  maliciousness  thus  identifies  his  being 
with  a  higher  order,  and  the  unnaturalness  of  his  vice 
indicates  how   the   opposite   virtues  of   sympathy   and   non- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  209 
resentment  relate  him  to  a  human  order  of  being. 

7 — THE    POSSIBILITY    OF    MALEVOLENCE 

The  unique  quality  of  humanity  appears  in  vice  as  well 
as  virtue,  therefore,  and  the  place  of  conscience  is  seen  more 
clearly  when  the  axe  is  laid  to  the  root  of  human  bitterness. 
Only  man  is  malicious;  only  man  is  capable  of  vice;  for  the 
sub-human  forms  of  life  permit  no  unity  and  universality, 
which  make  the  moral  life  of  man  what  it  is.  Corruptio 
optimi  pessima — hence  human  hatred  expresses  the  lowest 
depth  of  sin.  For  this  reason,  the  exaggerated  activity  of 
conscience  need  cause  no  surprise,  and  when  one  sees  how 
the  demands  of  humanity  are  such  as  to  forbid  all  vicious 
egoism,  he  will  accept  the  function  of  conscience  as  a 
necessary  but  inferior  phase  of  the  ethical  life.  The  restraint 
of  nature  must  anticipate  the  positive  development  of 
humanity,  and  it  is  conscience  which  weakens  one  part  of 
man  that  another  may  grow  strong. 

In  the  literature  of  non-resentment,  no  systematic  theory 
of  the  ideal  is  outlined,  and  it  seems  to  be  by  sheer  religious 
insight  that  the  seer  is  led  to  mark  the  presence  of  the 
principle.  The  general  presumption  seems  to  be  that  if  man 
is  aware  of  his  presence  in  an  extra-natural  order,  whatever 
the  particular  nature  of  that  order  may  be,  he  will  tend  to 
view  his  life  in  another  light,  will  assume  new  standards 
and  perform  new  duties.  Taoism  presents  a  nihilistic 
system  of  things  and  counsels  non-requital  of  injury  as 
something  which  involves  the  acme  of  inaction.  Hence, 
when  it  is  said,  ''It  is  the  way  of  Tao  to  requite  injury  with 
kindness"  (Tao  Teh  King,  Ch.  LXiii),  it  is  also  pointed 
out  that  Tao,  which  involves  a  negative  conception  of  being, 
implies  inaction  as  the  ideal  of  life.  The  Bhagavad-Gita 
follows  a  similar  line  of  argument  and  praises  the  disciple 
who,  in  a  complete  indifference  which  knows  no  desire  or 
dismay,  joy  or  fear,  love  or  hate,  renounces  the  hatred  of 
enemies  (Ch.  xii).  Buddhism  and  the  Wisdom  literature 
of  the  Old  Testament  proceed  inward  to  a  psychological 
principle  and  observe  the  effect  of  non-resentment  upon  him 
who  would  naturally  expect  requital  of  injury  done.     Thus 


210  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

the  Dhamma-Pada  declares,  "Hatred  ceases  not  by  hatred, 
but  hatred  ceases  only  by  love"  (Ch.  i),  while  the  Book  of 
Proverbs  counsels  the  seeker  after  wisdom  to  feed  the  enemy 
and  heap  coals  of  fire  upon  his  head,  as  if  to  change  his 
attitude  of  malevolence.  Finally,  the  New  Testament  dis- 
cusses the  same  ideals  of  love  in  place  of  hate  and  non- 
resistance  in  place  of  revenge  as  though  they  were  organic 
to  the  Kingdom  of  God,  for  they  are  surveyed  in  a  universal 
light  and  are  not  sanctioned  according  to  any  practical 
principle  of  law. 

In  distinction  from  ethics,  religion  possesses  a  positive 
form  expressed  in  a  social  institution  like  the  church,  just  as  it 
allies  itself  w^ith  a  metaphysical  order  of  being.  When  this 
metaphysical  method  is  applied  to  life,  it  results  in  creating 
an  ideal  realm  of  benevolence  which  does  not  fail  to  assert 
itself  as  motive  in  the  mind  of  the  disciple,  who  feels  that 
he  owes  allegiance  to  an  ideal  order  of  things  wherein  utility 
and  other  practical  consequence  are  of  no  avail.  Considered 
in  ethical  fashion,  it  is  man's  inherent  relation  to  the  world 
of  humanity  which  involves  him  in  the  extra-natural  obliga- 
tions and  renders  him  subject  to  a  law  which  is  beyond  wis- 
dom and  justice.  By  means  of  mere  reform  man  could 
accomplish  the  practical  result  of  remorse  and  repentance, 
just  as  the  practical  desire  to  keep  the  peace  might  lead  one 
to  refrain  from  retaliation,  but  the  sense  of  humanity,  which 
habitually  idealizes  itself  and  views  its  relations  as  thoroughly 
self-contained,  does  not  rest  content  with  any  temporary  ad- 
justment of  person  to  person,  but  so  invades  the  mind  of  the 
ethical  subject  that  he  cannot  rest  until  he  has  placed  him- 
self in  right  relations  with  the  order  of  his  own  being.  To 
know  that  one  has  incurred  no  enemity  from  without  and 
to  feel  none  within  is  the  ideal  human  desire  which  seeks 
to  render  the  individual  at  one  with  humanity. 

No  harm  can  come  from  a  sense  of  conscience  which 
insures  one  against  all  resentment  from  others  and  from 
himself,  just  as  nothing  but  satisfaction  results  from  a  sense 
of  pleasure  which  is  devoted  to  securing  benefit  from  nature. 
But  where  pleasure  becomes  a  positive  end  and  leads  man 
to  will  it  for  itself,  and  where  conscience  is  similarly  drawn 
away  from  its  position,  in  humanity,  only  defeat  can  ensue 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  211 

for  him  who  has  thus  given  himself  up  to  morbid  pleasure 
and   pain.      Both   natural   pleasure   and   the   pain   of  com- 
punction weaken  the  will  and  retard  the  process  of  human 
striving  whose  purpose  is  the  realization  of  man,  and  he  who 
grasps  at  immediate  pleasure  or,  on  the  other  hand,  is  re- 
strained by  the  pain  of  remorse  has  failed  to  appreciate  the 
value  of  that  serene  humanity  which  should  possess  his  soul. 
Humanity  has  determined  that  man  should  strive,  and  what- 
ever interferes  with  this  impulse  to  assert  one's  selfhood  and 
worldhood  is  to  be  condemned.     Can  there  be  any  doubt 
that  Bohemianism,  as  known  in  the  old  world  and  the  new 
has  softened   the  moral  fibre  of  the  will,  or  that  British 
Puritanism,  in  its  Anglo-American  forms  has  been  similarly 
forbidding  to  the  progress  of  genuine  humanity?    Conscience 
has  ever  been  eccentric;   for  which  reason  the  mind  with 
naturistic  tendencies  felt  free  to  relegate  it  to  a  lower  place 
in    his   table   of  motives,   while   the   plodding  moralist  has 
suffered  his  being  to  lose  its  poise.     The  remedy  for  this 
critical  situation  is  to  be  found  in  a  view  which  requires  of 
conscience  a  mere  sense  of  what  is  in  accordance  with  an 
ever-striving  humanity. 


Ill 


CHARACTERISTIC  ETHICS  AND  RECTITUDE 

I — MORAL    LIFE    IN    REASON 

The  tendency  of  sensation  to  pass  over  into  idea  and 
the  reproduction  of  mental  life  in  the  form  of  memory  make 
possible  a  form  of  moral  life  in  idea.  When  we  recall  how 
hard  it  was  for  the  hedonist  to  account  for  human  action 
upon  the  basis  of  pleasure,  it  will  be  seen  that  a  view  of 
life  according  to  the  imperceptible  involves  no  excess  of 
idealism.  The  human  mind  is  not  at  all  devoted  to  the  life 
of  immediacy,  and  the  inevitable  tendency  to  reflect  inclines 
man  to  a  life  removed  from  direct  contact  with  the  world ; 
moreover,  the  principle  of  symbolism  enters  to  make  a  certain 
definite  course  of  conduct  stand  for  various  forms  of  human 
effort,  so  that  life  according  to  the  general  ideal  of  virtue 
is  no  more  remarkable  metaphysically  than  life  according  to 
a  general  experience  of  pleasure.  In  the  midst  of  this,  asso- 
ciation enters  in  to  bind  a  certain  feeling  to  a  convenient  form 
of  representation  in  idea,  and  the  cardinal  qualities  of  tem- 
perance, courage,  benevolence,  and  justice  are  only  so  many 
nuclei  about  which  cluster  rich  forms  of  conduct  in  the 
manifold.  Since  man  is  in  nature  and  is  destined  to  remain 
her  creature,  in  some  sense  of  that  term,  it  is  to  be  expected 
that  feelings  should  arise  and  become  factors  in  his  existence ; 
hence  hedonism  expresses  some  degree  of  that  humanism 
which  invests  mankind.  In  the  same  way,  it  is  no  matter 
of  surprise  that  a  detached  being  like  man  should  introduce 
ideas  of  his  own,  and  having  created  them  should  live  ac- 
cording to  them.  Among  such  ideas  are  beauty,  knowledge 
and  virtue,  or  the  right. 

In  the  case  of  these  ethical  ideals,  we  find  that  we  do 
not  come  upon  them  suddenly,  but  with  a  valuable  form 
of   preparation    incident    upon    conscience,    whose    place    in 

212 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  213 

humanity  is  almost  beyond  dispute.  To  make  the  transition 
from  pleasure  to  virtue  would  be  abrupt  and  the  way  there- 
unto would  be  forbidding  indeed;  but  as  pleasure  finds  its 
significance  in  a  world  of  nature,  so  conscience  reverts  to  a 
world  of  humanity  whence  comes  also  a  sense  of  right  and 
wrong,  unknown  in  the  natural  order  where  nothing  is  for- 
bidden or  permitted.  For  this  reason  the  idea  of  right  must 
be  discussed  in  connection  with  conscience  and  not  in  com- 
petition with  pleasure,  the  mind  of  man  which  interprets  his 
remorse  and  condemns  his  resentment  may  now  be  expected 
to  express  itself  more  directly  in  the  form  of  a  doctrine  of 
nght. 

The  ideal  of  right  forms  the  counterpart  of  conscience 
whose  nature  is  found  in  inner  sense.     Conscience  does  not 
tell  us  of  anything  beyond  itself,  but  in  a  general  way  arouses 
man  to  a  sense  of  his  humanity,  whereby  he  is  enabled  to 
form  clear  ideas  of  right  and  wrong.     Where  conscience  is 
composed  of  feeling  plus  idea  in  the  form  of  sentiment,  the 
right  unites  idea  with  idea  to  form  judgment;  the  analogy 
to  this  is  found  in  the  psychology  of  cognition,  where  sensa- 
tion becomes  ideation.     To  account  for  the  intelligence  of 
moral  relations,  philosophy  has  appealed  to  the  understanding 
with  the  aim  of  showing  how  readily  the  data  of  conscious- 
ness fall  into  the  forms  of  the  intellect.     Such  an  ambition 
is  represented  most  characteristically  by  Socrates,  who  con- 
tends that  virtue  can  be  conceived  and  communicated  accord- 
ing to  definition,  as  also  by  Kant  who  leads  his  categories 
from  the  field  of  defeat  in  speculative  reason  to  the  field  of 
victory  in  practical  reason.     With  these  two  heroes  of  the 
moral  world-order,  there  may  be  observed  a  common  disdain 
of  speculative  problems  which  leads  to  an  excessive  regard  for 
practical  ones,  as  if  one  could  say,  Virtue  .have  I  loved,  but 
truth  have  I  hated.     But  for  all  this  enthusiasm  over  sheer 
morality,  the  fact  remains  that  judgments  of  right  stand  in 
need  of  the  justification  required  by  judgments  of  reality. 

For  this  reason,  man  cannot  discuss  his  ethical  problems 
in  any  spirit  of  moral  seclusion,  but  must  come  out  into  the 
living  world  of  persons  and  survey  his  cherished  ideals  in 
the  midst  of  warm  instincts  and  natural  tendencies.  The 
principle   of   continuity,    which   carries   man   onward    from 


214  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

an  original  naivete,  to  a  full  humanity,  affords  insight  into 
the  connection  between  the  immediate  and  ultimate,  and 
shows  how  interest  in  pleasure  develops  into  an  interest  in 
virtue.  If  man  has  actually  passed  from  nature  to  culture, 
from  barbarity  to  civilization,  there  have  been  inner  changes 
in  view  and  in  sentiment  which  have  accompanied  these  outer 
transformations  in  occupation  and  motive,  whereby  virtue 
has  arisen  contemporary  with  the  unfolding  of  humanity  as  a 
form  of  consciousness.  In  nature  the  expedient  takes  the 
place  of  the  right,  and  conditional  morality  must  wait  until 
there  is  opportunity  before  absolute  right  and  wrong  can  be 
made  the  objects  of  desire  and  aversion.  At  the  same  time,  in 
an  age  of  civilization,  it  is  fruitless  to  seek  a  reduction  of 
virtues  to  primitive  utilities,  and  the  perfected  state  of  man 
is  as  devoted  to  the  right  as  the  primitive  condition  was 
given  up  to  necessity.  Two  general  views  of  rectitude  be- 
came possible;  one  the  product  of  a  rationalism  which  seeks 
to  account  for  ethics  by  appealing  to  reason;  the  other  the 
natural  outcome  of  human  consciousness  in  its  search  after 
ideals. 

These  contrasted  views  of  rectitude  are  quite  in  keeping 
with  the  two  methods  of  treating  conscience.  Where  the 
older  view  surveyed  conscience  in  an  airless  landscape  as  a 
clearly  outlined  intuition,  the  newer  view  finds  it  draped  in 
the  atmosphere  of  humanity  where  its  form  is  seen  as  sense. 
So  the  ideal  of  rectitude  appears  dogmatically  in  the  form 
of  autonomy;  or  more  critically  as  a  human  but  disinterested 
regard  for  what  is  noble  and  meritorious.  Where  autono- 
mous ethics  exalts  an  analytical  judgment  of  the  form, 
''Virtue  is  virtue,"  the  more  humanistic  view  aims  at 
synthetic  judgment  and  asserts,  "Virtue  is  something  human." 
When  we  have  seen  how  fruitless  is  the  attempt  to  establish 
autonomous  judgments  which  forbid  all  human  interest,  we 
shall  be  able  to  appreciate  how  great  is  the  problem  of 
ethical  judgment  in  general,  and  shall  then  find  opportunity 
to  develop  the  rich  synthetic  judgment  of  rectitude  that 
arises  naturally  in  the  inner  development  of  human  con- 
sciousness. For  apart  from  the  several  methods  of  autonomy 
and  intuitionism,  it  is  still  possible  to  deduce  rectitude  as  adso 
to  find  a  place  for  virtue. 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  215 

2 — RECTITUDE  AS  AUTONOMY 

Where  conscience  assumes  the  form  of  sentiment,  recti- 
tude appears  as  a  judgment.  Ancient  ethics  asserted  its  faith 
in  man's  ability  to  pursue  the  path  of  conduct  in  something 
more  than  an  instinctive  way  of  elaborating  the  ideal  of 
virtue,  while  modern  ethics  has  expressed  a  similar  faith  in 
the  norm  of  rectitude.  Hence  in  the  usual  fashion  of  mor- 
ality, one  may  say,  "Courage  is  a  virtue,"  and  "Honesty  is 
right;  but  the  attempt  to  detach  these  from  human  experi- 
ence and  render  them  self-evident  propositions  involves  in- 
surmountable contradiction.  Both  autonomous  rectitude  and 
isolated  conscience  are  far  removed  from  the  spirit  of 
humanity,  and  however  inclusive  they  seem  to  be  it  is  safe  to 
assume  that  they  are  not  only  concentric  with  that  humanity 
but  circumscribed  by  it.  As  with  rectitude  so  also  with 
virtue  whose  force  is  practically  the  same.  The  predicate, 
right,  IS  so  conceived  as  to  include  virtue  as  the  subject, 
so  that  the  judgment  becomes  an  identical  one.  Judgments 
of  right  are  thus  given  up  to  an  analytical  form  whose 
practical  worth  is  open  to  serious  question,  although  it  must 
be  conceded  that  this  phase  of  ethics  deserves  the  credit  for 
havmg  established  the  possibility  of  an  ethical  function  of 
judgment. 

In  Greek  philosophy,  the  development  of  ethical  judgment 
became  a  problem  as  soon  as  Socrates  made  possible  the  con- 
cept, in  the  form  of  ethical  definition.  This  question  was 
taken  up  by  the  Megarian  School  where  Euclid  united  the 
ethical  ideal  of  Socrates  with  the  metaphysical  doctrine  of 
Parmenides.  The  good  thus  becomes  the  one  true  being, 
however  various  may  be  the  names  applied  to  it,  and  any 
attempt  to  describe  it  must  be  in  terms  of  identity.  It  was 
this  notion  which  led  Stilpo  to  throw  doubt  upon  the  possi- 
bility of  judgment,  and  he  inclines  toward  sophistry  as  Euclid 
did  toward  the  Eleatic  doctrine.  So  perfect  is  the  unity  of 
being  that  every  statement  of  relation  assumes  the  form  of 
an  identical  proposition  which  forbids  all  progress  in  knowl- 
edge, (cf.  Windleband,  Hist,  of  Anc.  Philos.  §  27.) 
Such  a  view  witnessed  a  practical  culmination  in  the 
nihilistic  ideal  of  dTra^cia.   Among  the  Germans,  Kant  has  not 


2i6  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

failed  to  rehabilitate  the  Socratic  ideal  with  certain  com- 
plexities incident  upon  his  own  moralic  method.  Kant  saw 
that  there  was  a  humanity  which  had  value  and  dignity, 
just  as  there  was  a  morality  that  was  amenable  to  right 
and  duty  (cf.  Meta.  d.  Sitten,  S.  65),  and  it  was  only  the 
lack  of  freedom  which  prevented  him  from  giving  his 
judgments  of  right  more  content  than  his  notion  of  autonomy 
would  allow.  This  logic  advances  to  the  synthetical  ideal 
of  judgment,  while  his  ethics  halts  upon  the  field  of  the 
analytical,  and  habitually  reveals  an  inclination  to  cast  out 
all  warmth  of  life  even  to  moral  feeling  itself  as  something 
heteronomous  and  spurious  {Meta.  d.  Sit  ten,  S.  71-72). 

From  the  usual  standpoint  of  autonomy,  which  is  that 
of  rationalism,  it  seems  impossible  to  invest  virtue  with  any 
cardinal  content,  so  that  the  defender  of  this  form  of  faith 
is  forced  to  uphold  a  doctrine  of  life  without  reality,  just  as 
the  cramped  position  of  the  hedonist  led  him  to  a  life  without 
ideality.     Autonomy  is  wanting  in  content  because  it  has  no 
^yorthy  resources  of  which  it  may  avail  itself  in  attributing 
significance  to  morality.     For  this  reason,  it  contents  itself 
with  negations  directed  against  the  hedonic  and  utilitarian, 
and   thus  opposes  morality  which   springs   from   inclination 
and  leads  to  the  calculation  of  consequences.     To  act  from 
inclination  would   put  a  pathological  motive  in  place  of  a 
moral  one,  even   though  the  act  were  one  of  benevolence, 
while  to  be  guided  by  the  idea  of  well-being  would  produce 
legality  instead  of  morality,  even  in  case  of  an  act  of  justice 
(Meta.  d.  Sitten,  s.  255-257).     The  only  consistent  plan, 
which  appears  to  him  who  believes  that  life  consists  of  either 
desire  or  duty,  involves  the  autonomous  ideal,  whereby  one 
must  base  virtue  upon  virtue  and   follow  right  foi    right's 
sake.     Before  Kant,  Samuel  Clarke  had  involved  himself  in 
a  similar  paradox,  escape  from  which  was  found  in  a  mild 
form   of   eudaemonia  wherein   both   rigorists   abandon   their 
perpendicular  positions  for  a  larger  view  of  life  which  in- 
volves the  postulates  of  Deity  and  immortality.     Clarke  was 
supreme    in    the    dogmatism    that    declared    moral    relations 
to  be  as  demonstrable  as  mathematical  ones,  and  in  the  form 
of  an  identical  proposition  he  made  virtue  equal  virtue  as 
certainly  as  twice  two  equals  four.     It  is  absurd  to  reason 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  217 

otherwise,   and   one   can   no   more   logically   identify  virtue 
with  pleasure  than  he  can  make  twice  two  equal  five.     Such 
is  the  abstract  path  which  Clarke  pursued  until  he  came 
abreast  of   human  life;   then   he   summed   up   the   situation 
with   all   the  pathos  of  moral   doubt  coupled  with  ethical 
earnestness,  expressed  in  the  following  words:     ''Thus  far 
IS  clear   'Tis  certain  indeed  that  virtue  and  vice  are  eternally 
and  necessarily  different,  and  that  one  truly  deserves  to  be 
chosen  for  its  own  sake  and  the  other  ought  by  all  means 
to  be  avoided,  though  a  man  were  sure  for  his  own  particular 
neither   to   gain    nor   to   lose   anything   by   the   practice   of 
mher     .     .     .     but  the  case  does  not  stand  thus     .     . 
I  he  practice  of  virtue  is  accompanied  with  great  temptations 
and  allurements  of  pleasure  and  profit     ...     And  this 
alters  the  question  and  destroys  the  practice  of  that  which 
appears  so  reasonable  in  the  whole  speculation,  and  intro- 
duces the  necessity  of  rewards  and  punishments. '*     (Natural 
Religion,  I,  7). 

The  hopelessness  of  such  autonomy  need  not  cloud  the 
mind  with  doubts  concerning  the  possibility  of  ethical  judg- 
ment  in    general,    which    involves   a   question    vastly   more 
momentous    than    the    pedantic    issues   of    intuitionism.      Is 
ethical  judgment  possible?     Such  is  the  question  that  is  to 
be   debated   in  this  part  of  our  study,  which   indulges  the 
intellectualistic  side  of  morality  to  the  greatest  possible  ex- 
treme.    Only  a  certain  moral  one-sidedness  in  Kant  could 
have  made  him  so  skeptical  of  the  function  of  judgment  in 
^^!^.^^"i^   ^  credulous  of   its  value   in   ethics,    for   in   the 
Kritik   der   reinen    Vernunft   he   does   all    in    his   power   to 
obstruct   the   path   of   judgment,   while   in   the   Kritik   der 
praktischen    Vernunft   he    betrays   a   strange    weakness    for 
autonomous  ethical  propositions;  just  as  in  the  metaphysical 
work  he  seeks  by  all  means  to  cast  out  the  premises  of  soul, 
world,    and    world-soul,    while    in    the    moralistic    one    he 
suffers  no  sense  of  logical  contradiction  to  forbid  his  rein- 
statement of  the  postulates  of  God,  freedom,  and  immorality. 
In  the  first  Kritik,  Kant's  ideal  of  judgment  is  the  synthetic 
one,     according    to    the    great    interrogative,    ''Wie    sind 
synthettsche    Urtheile  a  priori   mbglich''    (S.    19).      In   the 
second  Kritik  he  falls  back  upon  the  analytical  proposition 


2i8  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

and  asserts,  virtue  is  virtue.  In  such  a  confusion  of  methods, 
what  was  needed  was  a  recognition  that  all  judgment  is 
inherently  difficult,  so  that  both  logic  and  ethics  must  first 
justify  the  general  connection  of  concepts  before  any  par- 
ticular forms  may  be  discussed. 


3 — THE  PROBLEM  OF  ETHICAL  JUDGMENT 

In  the  beginning,  with  Socrates,  the  principle  of  definition 
was  an  ethico-logical  one,  fit  for  a  discussion  of  both  the 
good  and  true ;  hence  we  should  expect  the  moralist  to  interest 
himself  in  the  possibilities  of  concept  and  judgment.  The 
elaboration  of  the  concept,  which  is  a  process  involving 
abstraction  and  generalization,  brings  afcfout  a  fusion  of 
an  idea  and  its  marks,  as  man  with  bi-pedality,  gold  with 
yellowness,  and  animal  with  locomotion.  But  further  ex- 
amination reveals  a  certain  looseness  of  connection  between 
the  concept  and  its  marks  which  can  hardly  exist  with  a  thing 
and  its  qualities.  Hence  arises  the  question.  How  does  a 
concept  inhere  in  its  marks?  In  firm  analytic  fashion,  or  in 
a  more  fluid  synthetic  form?  The  Socratic  Megarians,  like 
Euclid  and  Stilpo,  opposed  any  separation  of  thing  into 
qualities,  or  of  concept  into  marks,  and  our  modern  meta- 
physics with  Spinoza  and  Kant,  reveals  a  hesitancy  to  relate 
a  substance  to  its  attributes  or  a  thing-in-itself  to  sensible 
phenomena.  Moreover,  there  is  something  in  the  very  nature 
of  logical  law  to  prevent  any  form  of  judgment  which  seeks 
to  pass  beyond  the  principle  of  identity. 

This  fundamental  logical  principle  helps  the  concept  to 
connect  thing  with  quality,  or  substance  with  attribute,  but 
hinders  any  attempt  to  separate  them  into  a  judgment  of 
relation.  Monism  is  the  enemy  of  all  judgment.  If  man  is 
man,  how  can  he  be  bi-pedality;  if  gold  is  gold,  how  can 
it  be  yellow;  if  animal  is  animal,  how  can  we  call  it 
locomotion?  Is  the  subject  the  predicate,  does  it  possess 
the  predicate,  or  in  some  manner  inhere  in  it?  The  prin- 
cipium  identiatis,  which  in  logic  identifies  a  thing  with  itself 
and  in  ethics  makes  virtue  equal  virtue,  seems  to  prescribe 
any  judgment  of  relation  between  subject  and  predicate,  so 
that  identity  in  thought  and  autonomy  in  life  seem  to  follow 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  219 

«  nece^ary  consequences.     The  way  to  synthesis,  wWch 
Kant  affected  to  find  in  his  intuitions  of  time  and  space,  as 
n  the  categories  of  substance  and  casuality,  was  such  as  to 
l.m.t  Itself  to  the  world  of  appearance  only,  where  the  law 
He'Sr  ^'  '[^^^^^'^^^"'^d  .t°  reality,  no  longer  threatened. 
th.^Tv   ^"''^  ^^.ff^"  genume  judgments  will  find,  however, 
that  this  law  which  aids  the  concept  is  of  value  also  in  per- 
fecting  the   judgment,    for   it   allows   a   limited    form   of 
synthesis  which   yields   definite   knowledge.      We   do   no 
care  to  assert  that  gold  has  yellowness  in  general,  for  the 
peculiar  luster  of  the  metal  is  not  like  the  tint  of  the  flower, 
just  as  the  sweetness  of  the  apple  is  not  like  that  of  the 
orange   or  the  virtue  of  man  like  that  of  the  angel.    There 
must  be  some  sort  of  qualification  if  the  quality  is  to  be  de- 
scried, (cf.  Lotze.  Grundzuge  d.  Logik.%  30). 

wnrV  nf  ^a'^''^  ^^^  °^  *''°"^'''  "°^  ^PP"'^  to  continue  the 
work  of  identifying  concepts,  and  where  we  cannot  immedi- 
ately connect  two  differem  ideas,  we  still  find  it  possible  to 
set  up  some  re  ation  between  them.  The  law  in  question 
relates  to  causality  as  the  first  one  related  to  substance;  it  is 
the  prxncxpium  rattoms  sufficientis.  According  to  such  a 
principle  of  sufficient  reason,  we  may  take  a  sfries  of  pro 
fu'!l'°"'  c°"f"r'"g  gold  and  assert  them  in  accordance  with 
nXThrT"E''-°'.!'^'?"'y  ""'^  ^^•^''°"-   Gold  is  yellow 

n  the  It  r^u"  '^'  ^•'■''  ^"•"''^^  '"  """^  "^'^'  valuable 
n  the  market.     Thus  we  justify  the  copula  and  satisfy  the 

law  of  identity  by  adding  a  sufficient  reason  for  our  jud^ient 

he"Tre2'  f  '^."^^'"  ''^'^^-     I"  '^e  same  spirit  we  now^imit 
the  predicate  in  such  a  way  as  to  conform  to  the  subject. 

2,te  TJ'h'"^"^-^'  does  not  indulge  us  in  these  forms  of 
^.    ri.K"'i™'"fr":  '"^'  '"  ^"°'her  mode  of  speech  we 

we'sav  mL  "'■k''  '™;'f '""  °^  '^'  ^'"^'"'^''-  Th\is  where 
we  say,  Man  is  beautiful,  woman  is  beautiful,  the  French 

nnZl  ,  T'a  ^"'^  ',"  ^^^"'"  ^'"''^  °*  perception  affirms, 
rhomme.  tl  est  beau;  la  femme.  elle  est  belle,  so  that  the 
demands  of  logic  and  aesthetics  are  met  at  once.  From  the 
«hical  point  of  view  where  we  would  not  have  the  autono- 
mous principle  of  Identity  deny  our  right  to  make  certain 
useful  assertions  concerning  virtue,  we  are  permitted  to  de- 


220  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

clare,  Virtue  is  beautiful  in  humanity,  serviceable  in  nature, 
valuable  in  society,  and  praiseworthy  in  religion,  wherein  we 
have  a  series  of  synthetic  judgments  more  advantageous 
to  our  science  than  the  monotonous.  Virtue  is  virtue,  which 
may  seem  sublime  in  the  abysmal  character  of  its  unpersonal 
utterances,  but  does  not  serve  the  living  interests  of  humanity. 

4 — REAL  RECTITUDE  AND  HUMAN  INTEREST 

The  foregoing  discussion  of  moral  rectitude  has  tended 
to  show  how  ethical  judgments  are  valid  even  when  they 
do  not  confine  themselves  to  purely  identical  propositions; 
hence  the  loss  of  autonomy  in  particular  is  not  the  loss  of 
the  judging  function  in  general.  In  place  of  a  valueless 
autonomy,  we  may  substitute  certain  synthetic  forms  of 
judgment  which  indicate  the  sense  of  worth  that  the  mind 
attaches  to  forms  of  conduct  apart  from  any  immediate  ad- 
vantage which  may  accrue  therefrom.  Where  logical  judg- 
ments are  so  formed  that  they  have  a  necessity  and  univer- 
sality independent  of  experience,  ethical  propositions  are 
made  prior  to  pleasure,  and  the  revised  form  of  the  doctrine 
of  right  involves  only  the  possibility  of  disinterestedness  in 
attitude  and  action.  If  man  is  not  supposed  to  be  autono- 
mous, he  is  called  upon  to  be  human,  and  if  he  need  not 
inhibit  all  sense  of  inclination  in  the  pursuit  of  virtue  he  is 
expected  to  be  distinterested.  Is  man  capable  of  detached 
conduct  or  must  he  ever  calculate  consequence  and  live  in 
the  lower  level  of  experience  and  pleasure?  This  is  the 
supreme  question  and  unless  it  receive  satisfactory  answer,  it 
is  vain  to  premise  any  ethical  value  to  our  human  striving. 

If  the  hedonic  argument  were  more  compact,  and  the 
pursuit  of  pleasure  were  destined  to  yield  permanent  advan- 
tage, or  if  the  eudaemonistic  ideal  of  limited  activity  were 
likely  to  content  man,  there  would  be  less  hope  of  establishing 
the  ideal  of  disingenuousness  which  contains  the  hope  of 
humanity.  Characteristic  morality,  in  its  advance  beyond  the 
empirical  wiles  of  nature,  may  be  invested  with  a  content 
which  still  distinguishes  the  judgment  from  the  empty 
rationalism  of  autonomy,  and  where  the  ideal  keeps  free 
from  the  taint  of  immediacy,  it  may  assert  the  humanity  of 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  221 

man  as  the  ground  of  all  ethical,  as  well  as  other  forms  of 
judgment.  Thus  Kant  felt  secure  in  his  illicit  eudaemonism 
because  he  relegated  the  ethical  well-being  of  man  to  the 
trans-phenomenal  world,  while  Clarke  still  hoped  to  continue 
his  rationalistic  argument  in  his  abrupt  transition  from  the 
here  to  the  hereafter.  In  the  midst  of  this  there  is  oppor- 
tunity for  real  contention,  and  we  may  pause  before  sincerely 
asking  ourselves  whether  man,  whose  life  assumes  a  pheno- 
menal and  individual  form,  is  capable  of  making  universal 
and  necessary  humanity  his  aim,  which  alone  can  invest  his 
being  with  dignity.  To  pursue  such  an  inquiry,  one  must 
lay  less  stress  upon  the  severer  forms  of  logical  law  and  pay 
more  heed  to  the  yielding  judgments  of  the  aesthetic  con- 
sciousness, where  may  be  found  permanent  pleasure  and 
universal  perception. 

If  man  were  meant  to  live  according  to  nature,  he  would 
have  no  understanding;  if  his  life  were  to  be  guided  by 
reason,  he  would  have  no  organs  of  sense.  But  man  has 
both  sense  and  understanding,  and  his  life  consists  in  ad- 
justing their  respective  claims  in  both  action  and  reflection. 
The  human  mind  is  not  so  given  up  to  sense  that  it  cannot 
entertain  ideas,  or  so  lacking  in  originality  that  it  is  unable 
to  connect  these  in  forms  of  judgment.  Speculation  thus 
becomes  possible,  and,  while  man  seems  to  be  hemmed  in  by 
time  and  space  and  inclosed  in  his  individuality,  he  evinces 
the  ability  to  view  the  world  In  its  totality.  This  Is  by  virtue 
of  the  implicit  humanity  of  the  ego  which  makes  possible  the 
perception  of  outer  universality,  because  it  is  possessed  of  a 
corresponding  inner  unity.  Humanity  thus  becomes  an 
object  of  consciousness  and  it  is  only  as  the  individual 
abandons  the  petty  egoism  of  opinion  and  rises  to  the  univer- 
sality of  judgment  that  knowledge  becomes  possible.  Such 
intellectual  disinterestedness  reveals  itself  in  science,  in  art, 
in  philosophy,  and  since  man  has  produced  these  speculative 
forms  of  his  humanity  we  need  not  question  his  ability  to 
consider  humanity  as  such.  It  is  the  survival  of  sense  that 
leads  ethics  to  wonder  whether  man  can  rise  above  hedonism, 
but  the  triumph  of  reason  in  the  judgments  of  physical, 
aesthetlcal  and  dialectical  science  is  likewise  the  triumph  of 
humanity  over  egoistic  interests. 


222  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

The  human  combination  of  sense  and  spirit  which  seems 
to  threaten  pure  cognition,  reappears  in  a  practical  fashion 
in  the  kingdom  of  motivation,  whence  one  is  led  to  inquire 
whether  man  can  make  humanity  an  object  of  action  as  well 
as  of  thought.  Human  culture  leaves  no  doubt  that  this 
high  endeavor  has  ever  characterized  man,  and  just  as  he 
has  long  since  surrendered  to  the  ideal  in  contemplation, 
so  he  has  repeated  the  performance  in  the  field  of  conquest. 
One  need  only  glance  at  art  to  behold  the  free  contribution 
which  man  has  made  to  humanity,  for  without  natural  or 
social  constraint  he  has  perfected  the  most  excellent  things 
his  mind  could  conceive.  The  fine  arts  are  so  many  evi- 
dences of  human  consecration  to  an  ideal,  and  as  long  as 
interest  in  such  unrealities  abide,  nothing  may  be  feared 
for  the  security  of  a  detached  humanity.  Religion  likewise 
involves  this  same  inclination  for  humanity  and,  apart  from 
the  assumption  that  man  can  will  that  which  does  not  profit 
him,  the  acts  of  religionists  can  never  be  analyzed. 

The  Vedic  anxiety  to  discover  the  Self,  where  alone  one 
may  abide  in  security,  and  the  Christian  culture  of  the  Soul 
are  sufficient  evidence  of  the  disinterested  behaviour  of  man. 
One  need  not  long  to  demonstrate  the  validity  of  autonomous 
judgments  which  can  only  say.  Virtue  is  virtue,  for  in  the 
aesthetic-religious  consciousness  he  has  living  examples  of 
judgments  which  declare.  Life  Is  spiritual  and  humanity  is 
of  value.  The  genuine  aim  of  the  characteristic  moralist 
should  be,  not  to  demonstrate  man's  power  to  follow  the 
abstract  in  thought  or  action,  but  his  ability  and  willingness 
to  consider  the  universal  Interest  of  humanity. 

5 — HUMANITY  AS  THE  IDEAL 

In  addition  to  placing  the  detached  interest  of  humanity 
in  the  stead  of  the  autonomous  judgments  of  rationalistic 
ethics,  our  system  calls  upon  us  to  recognize  the  positive 
elements  which  appear  in  the  synthetic  judgments  of  custom. 
These  objectlficatlons  of  the  ever-striving  human  spirit  are 
not  so  Imperfect  but  that  they  can  at  least  suggest  the  ideals 
of  humanity.  One  should  not  be  too  cavalier-like  with 
natural  phenomena,  which  are  the  subject-matter  of  science 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  223 

and  art;  nor  should  he  uphold  a  characteristic  ethical 
system  which  tends  to  flout  the  testimony  given  by  cardinal 
virtues  and  spiritual  ideals.  Neglect  of  humanity  has 
caused  modern  morality  to  deliver  the  virtues  over  to  either 
a  relatlvistic  philosophy,  like  Hobbes'  and  Mandeville's 
which  completely  eviscerated  them,  or  to  a  rationalistic  one 
wherein  they  were  immediately  petrified  in  the  form  of 
"intuitions."  Virtues  are  not  hedonic  utilities  or  intuitive 
norms  but  human  values.  Courage  and  justice,  benevolence 
and  wisdom  do  not  arise  because  of  any  mere  demand  on 
the  part  of  society,  or  because  of  their  disciplinary  value 
of  character,  but  they  appear  according  to  the  constraint 
of  humanity  which  seeks  to  express  its  sense  of  worth  and 
dignity. 

This  second  and,  as  we  believe,  superior  view  of  human 
rectitude  has  not  lacked  recognition  in  modern  ethics,  while 
antiquity    thought    of    inculcating    no    other    ideal.      Even 
Kant,  the  arch  autonomist,  seems  to  have  been  possessed  of 
an  inkling  of  this  truth,  for  he  kept  referring  to  humanity 
and  its  moral  dignity,  and  this  very  notion  may  have  been 
strengthened    by    his    knowledge    of    Hutcheson's    '^Inquiry 
Concerning  Moral  Good  and  Evil",     Hutcheson's  reply  to 
Mandeville,  with  whom  also  Kant  was  familiar,  involved 
a  superior  conception  of  moral  sense,  just  as  it  carried  out  a 
fine  argument  for  disinterested  morality;  all  it  required  to 
reduce   it   to   a   system   was   the   principle   of   value   and   a 
metaphysics  of  humanity.     The  aim  of  Hutcheson  was  to 
defend  an  original  sense  of  virtue  antecedent  to  all  interest, 
and  his  arguments  led  him  to  a  position  expressive  of  the 
most  consistent   form   of   intuitlonism.      He   contended   for 
neither   abstract   rectitude   nor  concrete   feeling,   but  allied 
himself  with  a  view  of  virtue  as  something  independent  of 
private  interest,  but  at  one  with  the  well-being  of  humanity. 
This  is  finely  expressed  by  saying  "Whence  this  secret  chain 
between   each   person   and   mankind?     How  is  my  interest 
connected  with  the  most  distant  parts  of  it?     And  yet  I 
must  admire  actions  which  are  beneficial  to  them,  and  love 
the  author  whence  this  love,  compassion,   indignation,   and 
hatred  toward  even  feigned  characters,  in  the  most  distant 
ages  and   nations  according  as  they  appear  kind,   faithful, 


224  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

and  compassionate  or  of  opposite  dispositions,  toward  their 
imaginary  contemporaries?  If  there  is  no  moral  sense, 
which  makes  rational  actions  appear  beautiful,  or  deformed ; 
if  all  approbation  be  from  the  interest  of  the  approver, 
'What's  Hecuba  to  us,  or  we  to  Hecuba'  ?" 

Hutcheson's  theory  depends  upon  a  "sense  of  moral  good  in 
humanity"  which  pleases  us  without  any  sense  of  advantage 
(Inquiry,  Sect.  i).  This  attitude,  anticipating  the  aesthetic 
ideals  of  Kant,  is  assumed  as  something  in  keeping  with  the 
usual  practices  of  mankind,  and  represents  an  appreciation  of 
humanity  with  no  superior  among  the  English  moralists  of 
the  1 8th  century.  Hutcheson's  argument  becomes  all  the 
more  plausible  when,  instead  of  seeking  to  divest  the  moral 
sense  of  all  feeling  of  pleasure,  he  turns  that  feeling  into 
something  universal  and  intellectual  and  accounts  for  private 
gratification  as  ''concomitant  pleasure"  (Inquiry,  Sect.  II. 
VIII ).  This  seems  to  be  the  most  defensible  view  of 
intuitionism  and  rectitude  that  the  school  has  to  oflFer; 
its  basis  is  found  In  humanity  rather  than  in  reason.  Man 
is  represented  neither  as  having  nor  as  wanting  private 
interest,  and  the  conflict  between  egoism  and  altruism, 
autonomy  and  heteronomy  is  lost  sight  of  in  the  general 
contention  that  humanity  has  its  own  inner  life  and  makes 
itself  an  end  both  real  and  worthy.  No  longer  need  we 
wonder  whether  man  can  lend  himself  to  altruism  or 
autonomy,  for  now  we  are  involved  in  the  larger  question 
whether  humanity  has  sufficient  power  to  accomplish  its 
vocations  or  enough  value  to  content  the  strivings  of  man's 
spirit. 

If  man  is  not  destined  to  enjoy  the  happiness  of  his 
humanity,  but  must  strive  with  himself  as  well  as  with 
nature,  he  is  permitted  to  know  that  in  the  consciousness 
of  his  own  spiritual  nature  Is  the  ideal  of  rectitude  to  be 
found.  He  is  not  advised  by  his  conscience  to  surrender 
to  any  impersonal  law  of  autonomy,  calculated  to  destroy 
all  love  of  life,  knowledge  and  beauty,  but  the  humanity 
that  lends  its  essence  to  the  moral  sense  reappears  and  con- 
strains man  to  select  an  aim  which,  while  allied  with  his 
own  nature,  shall  not  be  phenomenal  and  individual,  but 
real  and  universal.     Here  appears  in  the  particular  form  of 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  225 

motive  that  general  principle  of  humanity  which,  as  an 
impulse  in  the  individual,  tendency  in  the  race,  and  order 
in  the  world,  served  as  the  premises  of  this  view  of  man's 
morality.  And  whatever  the  most  convincing  categories  of 
ethics  may  turn  out  to  be,  the  supreme  reality  of  the  moral 
life  consists  in  an  ever-living  humanity  whose  realization 
is  the  only  justifiable  and  likely  aim  of  ethical  striving. 
Our  examination  of  characteristic  morality  has  shown  how 
necessary  it  is  to  keep  within  the  shadow  of  such  an  idea. 
Conscience  makes  its  appeal  to  us  because  it  speaks  the  inti- 
mate language  of  our  own  being,  while  rectitude  appeals 
to  our  minds  by  reason  of  its  connection  with  the  totality 
of  our  human  nature. 

Having  observed  how  conscience  and  rectitude  assume 
their  proportions  in  the  one  all-inclusive  humanity,  we  are 
ready  to  make  the  transition  to  the  second  form  of  char- 
acteristic ethics  based  upon  the  will  rather  than  the  intellect, 
and  changing  the  view  from  norms  to  be  recognized  to 
duties  to  be  fulfiled.  Here  the  usual  treatment  of  the 
ethical  problem  betrays  a  peculiar  lapse  of  logic  not  com- 
monly noticed.  By  what  intellectual  right  do  we  effect 
the  transition  from  rectitude  to  obligation,  or  from  accepting 
a  point  of  view  to  performing  a  task?  Kant  asserts  the 
autonomy  of  rectitude  and  the  categorical  nature  of  duty 
without  showing  how  one  leads  to  the  other.  Before  him. 
Price  had  raised  this  very  question  and  had  sought  to  pass 
from  the  certainty  of  judgments  of  rectitude  to  the  obliga- 
tion of  moral  duties.  "From  the  account  given  of  obliga- 
tion, it  follows  that  rectitude  is  a  law  as  well  as  a  rule  to 
us;  that  it  not  only  directs  but  binds  all  as  far  as  it  is 
perceived."      (Review,  Chap,  vi.) 

But  this  only  states  the  difficulty  without  solving  it, 
and  the  philosophic  interests  of  unity  demand  that  we  find 
the  same  function  operative  in  both  the  judgment  of  rectitude 
and  the  law  of  obligation.  This  function  must  be  capable 
of  assuming  an  active  as  well  as  a  passive  form,  while  it 
must  be  broad  enough  to  include  both  forms  of  characteristic 
ethics.  For  such  a  purpose  there  seems  to  be  only  one 
principle:  namely,  humanity.  In  it  are  found  conscience 
and  rectitude  in  their  intellectual  forms,  as  well  as  freedom 


226  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

and  duty  in  their  volitional  capacity.  And  not  only  upon 
the  metaphysical  side,  but  In  connection  with  moral  interest 
may  we  note  this;  for  it  is  humanity  which  puts  forth  the 
ideal  of  rectitude  and  the  motive  of  duty  not  for  the  sake 
of  these  principles,  but  for  the  sake  of  indwelling  human 
consciousness  which  uses  these  as  modes  of  expression  and 
forms  of  realization.  The  continuity  of  human  striving, 
having  identified  the  man  of  sense  with  the  man  of  reason, 
now  reappears  to  reconcile  the  contrary  forms  of  morality 
as  rectitude  and  morality  as  duty.  It  is  the  same  human 
creature  who  Is  first  passive  in  his  judgments  and  then 
active  in  his  motives. 


IV 
HUMAN  STRIVING  AS  FREEDOM 

I THE  PLACE  OF  FREEDOM  IN  THE  WORLD 

Like  many  another  problem   in   the  ethical  striving  of 
humanity,— the   paradox   of   pleasure,   the   conflict   between 
immediate  and  remote  well-being,  remorse  and  non-resent- 
ment,   autonomous    and    disinterested    virtue— the    question 
concerning    human    freedom    Involves    again    the    idea    of 
mans  ambiguous  position   In   the   universe.     The  inherent 
conflict   between   naturistic  and   humanistic   forces  thus  re- 
appears upon  a  new  field  to  create  a  new  and  particular 
form   of   an    old   and    general   problem.      Hence   the   com- 
petitive   claims    of    freedom    and    determinism    need    cause 
no  surprise  m  connection  with  a  method  of  thought  which 
seeks  everywhere  to  account  for  individual  ethical  problems 
upon  the  basis  of  a  universal  striving  of  humanity  toward 
realization      With   nature  as  his  origin  and  her  forms  of 
lite  still  adhering  to  him,  could  man  be  expected  to  conduct 
himself  according  to  sheer  liberty?    With  a  human  destiny, 
which  has  led  him  out  of  nature  into  spiritual  life  in  its 
characteristic  forms  of  consciousness  and  conduct,  can  this 
same  human  subject  be  accounted  for  according  to  causa- 
tion?    Man's  very  humanity  is  proof  of  his  freedom,  his 
history   is   the   unfolding  of   his   freedom,    the   goal   of   all 
his  striving  is  no  point  In  nature,  but  an  object  set  by  the 
reasonable  will  Itself.     In  this  way,  freedom  finds  a  secure 
position  in   the  striving  life  of  man,  and  it  is  only  when 
we  set  out  with  a  fixed  and  finished  conception  of  humanity 
that  liberty  causes  philosophic  difficulty. 

The  principle  of  freedom  prepares  the  way  for  duty  as 
conscience  expanded  into  rectitude,  all  four  principles  pro- 
ceeding from  the  one  humanity  with  its  inner  life  and  out- 
ward striving.     Thus  related   to  the  whole  moral  life  of 

227 


228  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

man,  freedom  appears  as  no  extra  premise  or  postulate 
brought  In  from  without  to  further  the  moral  conquest 
carried  on  by  humanity,  but  assumes  the  form  of  something 
implicit  In  the  full  striving  of  man.  If  there  can  be  found 
no  substitute  for  the  traditional  idea  of  free-will,  It  will 
be  necessary  to  invest  the  old  principle  with  a  new  content, 
as  also  to  adopt  some  new  line  of  approach  to  it.  The 
elder  view  provoked  a  dualism,  Inasmuch  as  it  set  liberty  and 
law  at  variance  with  each  other;  the  new  and  humanistic 
method  asserts  a  monistic  tendency  and  seeks  to  reconcile 
the  unhappy  contrast  between  freedom  and  fate.  Genuine 
human  liberty  does  not  consist  in  any  supposed  ability  to 
defeat  nature  In  Its  law  of  casuallty,  but  involves  the  power 
to  depart  from  nature  In  the  Interests  of  a  higher  hunian 
life.  Hence  if  freedom  arouses  in  nature  the  apprehension 
that  casuallty  sometimes  provokes  In  ethical  consciousness, 
the  great  World-Spirit  could  not  complain  that  liberty  In 
man  was  an  attempt  to  destroy  her  laws,  but  could  only  feel 
chagrin  that  her  highest  creature  should  leave  her  to  vow 
allegiance  to  a  superior  order  of  being.  For  man  has  shown 
this  very  tendency  to  abandon  the  Immediate  order  for  the 
sake  of  carrying  on  a  form  of  life  in  another  realm,  and  the 
question  of  freedom  Is  not  one  of  mere  possibility,  but  of 
reality,  inasmuch  as  man  has  been  carrying  on  the  work  of 
liberty  for  an  Indefinite  length  of  time.  Human  freedom 
is  not  a  special  problem  encountered  only  on  the  steep  road 
of  dialectics,  but  is  the  usual  situation  in  the  world  of 
humanity.  There  Is  nothing  extraordinary  about  the  prob- 
lem, that  should  distinguish  It  from  the  question  of  con- 
science or  rectitude;  but  it  is  something  to  be  expected  in 
connection  with  that  striving  toward  selfhood  which  gives 
man's  life  its  meaning. 

2 — THE    PUNCTUAL    VIEW    OF    FREEDOM 

The  traditional  view  of  freedom  has  put  the  problem 
of  liberty  and  determinism  In  the  position  of  a  sharp  either 
— or;  to  have  both  seems  impossible.  The  ambiguous  posi- 
tion of  man  in  the  universe,  however,  does  not  suffer  fate 
and  freedom  to  rest  upon  the  same  metaphysical  level,  but 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  229 

adjusts  them  vertically  as  successive  stages  of  the  one 
active  principle  of  the  world.  Physical  force  can  hardly  be 
regarded  as  friendly  to  the  human  will,  but  why  should  we 
interpret  the  unconscious  activity  of  nature  as  though  it 
were  inimical  to  our  liberty?  It  is  nearer  the  truth  to 
survey  nature  as  though  she  were  quite  IndiflFerent  to  the 
purposes  of  humanity,  and  it  is  a  false  romanticism  which 
imagines  that  nature  frowns  or  smiles  upon  our  freedom. 
The  metaphysical  place  of  causality  is  beneath  that  of  free- 
dom as  all  nature  is  Inferior  to  humanity,  and  the  picture 
of  the  deterministic  problem  which  presents  a  conflict  upon  a 
level  field  is  far  removed  from  the  exigencies  of  the  case 
which  demand  that  we  shall  recognize  the  subordination  of 
the  lower  to  the  higher  as  the  free  fate  of  humanity.  Mere 
naturistic  ethics,  which  looks  to  immediate  pleasure  as  the 
end  of  life,  and  sheer  characteristic  morality  which  knows 
only  the  restraint  of  conscience,  produce  this  false  horlzon- 
tallsm  in  the  question  of  freedom,  and  a  system  which  finds 
man  striving  to  ascend  from  nature  can  only  survey  this 
question  vertically,  where  the  lower  lends  to  the  higher 
and  the  world  of  sense  prepares  the  way  for  the  world  of 
spirit.  Man  in  his  freedom  is  not  expected  to  fight  against 
man  in  his  fate,  but  his  problem  consists  in  adapting  the 
forms  and  forces  of  nature  to  the  sovereign  end  of  his  life. 

Such  a  conception  of  the  problem,  where  an  ever-striving 
humanity  ascends  above  the  confines  of  nature,  renders  un- 
necessary the  conventional  arguments  for  and  against  the 
equilibrium  of  motives.  It  is  usual  to  insist  upon  freedom 
as  something  evidenced  by  immediate  consciousness  before 
the  act  and  a  sense  of  compunction  after  it,  provided  it  has 
been  of  an  unethical  character.  Before  acting,  the  subject 
feels  free  to  choose  for  good  and  bad ;  after  acting,  his  sense 
of  approval  or  disapproval  advises  him  that  he  could  have 
done  otherwise ;  hence  the  moral  victory  or  defeat.  In  oppo- 
sition to  this,  determinism  maintains  a  principle  of  physical 
causality,  which  can  brook  no  interference,  as  well  as  an 
historical  principle  of  custom  whereby  events  "shape  them- 
selves" and  things  become  what  they  are.  With  this  heavy 
armor,  determinism  seeks  to  defend  itself  against  its  liber- 
tarian adversary,  who  is  so  far  removed  from  his  antagonist 


230  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

that  the  light  darts  of  inner  consciousness  never  reach  their 
mark.  No  such  conflict  takes  place,  except  upon  the  pages 
of  libertarian  and  deterministic  literature,  for  the  free  human 
being  has  no  more  desire  to  dethrone  causality  than  a  crea- 
ture possessed  of  locomotion  has  to  uproot  the  earth  beneath 
it.  While  humanity  assumes  a  fluid  form  indicative  of 
inner  freedom,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  forms 
of  nature  and  the  facts  of  history  should  appear  as  if 
crystallized.  But  the  total  universe  is  vast  enough  and  suffi- 
ciently rich  in  content  to  include,  not  only  fluidity  and 
solidity,  but  also  freedom  and  fate. 

The  punctual  view  of  freedom  is  insufficient  to  account 
for  human  activity  or  to  satisfy  its  ethical  needs;  hence  it 
becomes  necessary  to  extend  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  identify 
it  with  the  recognized  principle  of  human  emancipation 
from  nature.  In  such  a  way  a  systematic  view  of  liberty 
appears  and  a  genuine  human  being  takes  the  place  of  the 
*'free  moral  agent."  The  older  view  of  freedom  presents  an 
unequal  conflict  between  the  punctual  liberty  of  the  isolated 
individual  and  a  whole  world  of  physical  force ;  while  now 
we  are  led  to  see  that  the  contrast  is  between  the  lower  order 
of  nature  with  its  law  and  the  higher  one  of  humanity  with 
its  liberty.  Kant,  who  was  so  strangely  concerned  for  a 
fixed  freedom  which  should  surrender  man  to  the  categorical 
imperative,  still  saw  how  reason  could  reconcile  phenomenal 
causality  with  intelligible  freedom,  a  view  which  Schopen- 
hauer all  but  reduced  to  a  consistent  form  of  voluntaristic 
monism.  Indeed,  Schopenhauer's  system  so  related  the  will 
to  the  world  that  he  was  able  to  declare  that  the  will  is  not 
only  free  but  almighty — 'Vfr  fVille  ist  nicht  nur  fret,  son- 
dern  soaar  allmdchtig  (Welt  als  Wille  u.  Vorstellung,  $  53). 
Now,  this  systematic  liberty  of  humanity  as  an  inner  world- 
whole  must  be  substituted  for  the  solitary  freedom  of  the 

individual. 

Medieval  freedom  with  its  indifference  to  nature  must 
be  abandoned,  and  along  with  it  departs  the  whole  casuistical 
scheme  of  argument  for  and  against  punctual  liberty.  Man's 
whole  inner  life,  and  not  merely  his  alleged  freedom  is 
called  in  question,  and  ethical  philosophy  must  assume  a  new 
task    and    develop    new    methods.      The    career    of    ethical 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  231 

thought  in  Europe  witnessed  a  change  from  the  naive  will- 
less  morals  of  antiquity  and  the  sharp  punctual  freedom 
of  Augustine.  It  is  surprising  to  us  moderns  how  antiquity 
succeeded  in  acquiring  its  ideals  without  the  use  of  any 
special  principle  of  freedom,  but  that  is  because  we  assume 
no  full  and  systematic  view  of  human  activity.  Two  forms 
of  freedom  now  confront  each  other:  (i)  A  formal 
freedom  which  works  broadly  in  the  interests  of  the  su- 
perior man:  (2)  A  dynamic  freedom  reducing  the  whole 
ambiguous  position  of  man  in  the  universe  to  an  immediate 
choice.  The  first  one  made  possible  a  complete  freedom  for 
man,  not  only  in  his  moral  activity,  but  also  in  art  and 
science;  the  second  was  concerned  for  ethics  alone  and 
sought  to  prove  only  enough  liberty  to  enable  man  to  perform 
his  duty.  When,  therefore,  the  moral  life  is  so  recon- 
structed that  it  includes  the  total  perfection  of  man  in  his 
spiritual  superiority,  the  need  of  an  incisive  liberty  of  in- 
stantaneous choice  seems  to  pass  away. 

Man  possesses  freedom  in  cognition  as  well  as  in  cona- 
tion and  a  glance  at  the  usual  conduct  of  the  mind  may 
serve  to  enlighten  the  idea  of  liberty.  Sensation,  upon  which 
we  depend  for  our  source  of  knowledge,  does  not  so  limit 
man  that  he  has  no  higher  form  of  mental  life,  for  the  mind 
transforms  this  into  a  free  idea.  Such  freedom  is  no  ar- 
bitrary product  of  consciousness,  but  a  mental  image  in- 
harmony  with  nature  and  yet  satisfactory  to  the  mind.  It 
suggests  to  us  that  man  in  his  freedom  is  not  supposed  to 
destroy  causality  for  the  time  being,  but  to  use  its  materials 
and  transform  them  into  a  characteristic  human  product, 
whereby  law  is  turned  into  liberty  just  as  sensation  yields 
to  ideation.  As  a  human  vehicle  the  intellect,  therefore, 
seems  capable  of  carrying  the  responsibility  of  our  spiritual 
life  in  a  way  by  no  means  inferior  to  the  powers  of  the 
will.  In  the  mastery  of  active  cognition  antique  philosophy 
realizes  a  principle  of  freedom  not  unlike  the  modern  free- 
dom of  the  will.  The  creative  intellect  never  suffers  man  to 
submit  to  the  mere  registering  of  impressions  and  the  reaction 
upon  incitements,  but  leads  him  to  conceive  of  ideal  elements 
and  to  desire  ideal  stimuli.  If  we  assume  the  complete  sway 
of  the  category  of  causality,  whose  validity  was  so  questioned 


232  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

by  Kant  and  Hume,  and  thus  survey  man  as  determined  to 
follow  the  strongest  or  most  obvious  motive,  how  we  may  ac- 
count the  progress  of  his  humanity  ?  Where  man  is  conceived 
of  in  a  physical  sense,  the  mere  fact  that  he  possesses  auto- 
matic functions  is  sufficient  to  indicate  a  certain  degree  of  de- 
terminism. Man  must  breathe,  his  heart  must  beat,  veins  and 
arteries  must  act  in  accordance  with  the  set  plan  of  nature. 
But  man  as  a  valuing  organism  is  not  content  with  mere 
metabolism,  for  he  sees  in  his  life  benefits  in  which  he  would 
participate,  as  also  elements  which  he  would  turn  into 
genuine  human  products.  His  freedom  shows  itself  in  his 
native  ability  to  humanize  the  immediate  data  of  the 
natural  order. 

3 EVIDENCES  OF  CREATIVE  FREEDOM 

Among  man's  earliest  attempts  to  establish  his  human 
freedom  appears  his  art  which  is  closely  connected  with  the 
course  of  nature,  inasmuch  as  it  ever  assumes  a  perceptible 
form.  Nevertheless,  the  free  moment  of  aesthetics  does  not 
fail  to  appear  in  the  creative  deed  of  the  artist,  as  also  in 
the  detached  form  of  delight  which  man  experiences  when 
he  surveys  the  unrealities  of  the  fine  arts.  Under  the 
auspices  of  determinism,  stone,  plant  and  animal  w^ould 
find  sufficient  opportunity  for  realization ;  but  natural  law 
does  not  provide  for  civilization  and  culture,  which  arise 
only  as  free  human  reason  organizes  the  forms  of  outer 
and  inner  life.  What  humanity  needs  is  something  more 
than  causality  and  something  less  than,  or  different  from, 
the  liberum  arbitrium  indifferent'tae ;  it  is  a  spiritual  freedom 
which  makes  possible  the  creative  work  of  man  as  shown  in 
living  art.  The  solid  forms  of  the  artistic,  like  architecture 
and  sculpture,  show  how  man  can  recast  the  mechanical  and 
organic  principles  of  nature  into  structures  and  forms  whose 
significance  appeals  to  man  alone.  More  idealistic  products 
of  beauty  appear  in  painting  and  poetry  whose  connection 
with  the  real  world  is  established  through  the  slender  means 
of  a  single  sense  like  vision  or  hearing.  Man's  ability  to 
abandon  the  solidity  of  matter  and  repose  in  these  repre- 
sentative forms  of  what  exists  in  nature  and  what  happens 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  233 

in  history,  is  additional  proof  of  his  spiritual  superiority  to 
the  world  which  caused  him — proof  of  his  human  freedom. 
In  the  same  manner,  the  fugitive  forms  of  music  which,  as 
an  art,  possess  the  single  dimension  of  time  fortifies  our 
belief  that  in  the  world  of  percepts  man's  artistic  genius 
reveals  the  inner  freedom  of  his  humanity. 

To  this  same  end,  science  adds  evidence  concerning  the 
freedom  of  man  in  idea,  and  the  very  philosophy  of  nature, 
which    seeks    to    subsume    all    events    under    the    form    of 
causality,  testifies  to  the  triumph  of  the  human  understand- 
ing  oyer   the   material   order    under   its   sway.       Only   an 
emancipated   mind   could   attribute   law   to   physical   pheno- 
mena, and  the  development  of  the  world  of  knowledge  and 
of  the  world  of  nature   betrays  the  advance  of  humanity 
from  sensation  to  ideation.     Such  freedom  in  idea  is  in  no 
sense  a  combat  between  a  physical  force  here  and  a  psychical 
one   there,    for   mind   answers   no   challenge    from    inferior 
matter.      The   whole   question    concerns    itself   with    man's 
ability  to  formulate  ideas  in  such  a  way  as  to  construct  an 
independent  order  of  knowledge,  and  the  traditional  conflict 
between  forces  and  motives  does  not  contain  the  merits  of 
the  case.     Man  is  not  wholly  free,  but  his  history  reveals  a 
progress   toward    freedom,    and   sufficient   has   been    accom- 
plished in  ancient  aesthetics  and  modern  science  to  lead  one 
to  believe  that  man  will  triumph  over  nature,  whose  sway 
ends   with    the    animalistic    and    immediate    in    the    human 
species,  leaving  creative  reason  to  enjoy  its  own  liberty. 

The  intellectual  evidence  of  freedom  in  art  and  science, 
as   these   have   grown    up   in    ancient   and    modern   life,    is 
furthered  by  a  similar  sense  of  superiority  in  ethics  and  reli- 
gion   in    the    forms   of   pagan    virtue    and    Christian    faith. 
Man's  ethical  life,  like  his  science,  contains  only  a  sugges- 
tion  of  the   physical   order,   for  we   may  act   for   the  sake 
of  discipline  and  think  for  the  sake  of  mere  culture.     Our 
discussion   of   characteristic   ethics   as   rectitude   has   shown 
that,  where  the  absurdities  of  autonomy  are  forgotten,  man 
may  pursue  the  path  of  a  disinterested  human  endeavor  and 
thus  disengage  his  being  from  the  rest  of  the  natural  order, 
and  plant  him  in  his  humanity.     This  is  nothing  else  than 
the  classic  idea  of  virtue  and  the  Christian  conception  of 


234  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

right,  whose  undisputed  place  in  human  history  show  how 
a  natural  creature  may  yet  set  up  ideal  aims  and  live  as 
in  the  light.  So  artistic  is  man  that  he  cannot  be  contented 
with  the  satisfaction  of  immediate  well-being;  his  imagina- 
tion demands  recognition,  and  in  the  midst  of  primitive 
customs  the  idealized  hero  does  not  suffer  from  want  of 
recognition.  Achievement  in  human  affairs,  even  if  it  be 
in  such  trivial  matters  as  athletic  supremacy,  or  excellence 
in  intellectual  attainment,  as  with  playwright  and  actor, 
indicates  the  readiness  with  which  humanity  abandons  prac- 
tical considerations  and  indulges  itself  in  splendid  un- 
realities. Virtues  may  thus  become  forms  of  play,  and 
health  of  body  with  Spartans  flowers  in  cardinal  courage,  as 
health  of  mind  among  Athenians  puts  forth  wisdom.  The 
ancient  with  the  limited  range  of  classic  virtue  achieved 
freedom  with  an  ease  unknown  in  Christendom,  where  a 
certain  passion  for  piety  led  man  to  repudiate  the  physical 
order  so  that  free  character  might  flourish.  This  virtue 
reveals  the  power  of  freedom. 

The  practical  testimony  as  to  the  ideal  freedom,  humanity 
reaches  its  climax  in  religion.  As  science  and  conduct  sustain 
some  connection  with  the  world,  inasmuch  as  it  is  useful  to 
think  and  to  act  in  accordance  with  nature,  so  art  and 
religion  are  more  cavalier-like  in  their  treatment  of  natural 
forms  which  they  transform  in  the  intensity  of  their  idealiza- 
tion. Like  ethics,  religion  is  possessed  of  an  earnest  spirit 
which  suffers  not  its  human  subject  to  repose  in  the  world 
of  time  and  space,  but  inspires  him  to  secure  something 
permanent  in  the  form  of  an  absolute  spiritual  life.  That 
man  is  religious  who  in  the  integrity  of  his  inner  nature 
adjusts  himself  to  the  unity  of  the  world.  No  such  attitude 
on  the  part  of  man,  no  such  act  of  his  will  could  be  con- 
ceived were  man  not  possessed  of  ideal  freedom.  Like  art, 
religion  accomplishes  its  results  in  connection  with  objects  of 
sense;  for  while  beauty  and  worship  are  more  refined  than 
knowledge  and  virtue,  they  are  so  constructed  that  they  can 
participate  in  the  innocent  forms  of  sense.  The  quality  of 
freedom  involved  in  human  worship  is  thus  richer  than 
the  emancipation  of  the  spirit  in  science  and  ethics  where  a 
discreet  form  of  freedom  prevails. 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  235 

As  these  familiar  forms  of  human  culture  thus  testify, 
man  is  capable  of  ideal  activity  in  affairs  of  speculation  and 
practice.     This  is  his  proper  freedom   in  humanity,  which 
is  in   no  wise  comparable  with  the  disputable   freedom  of 
nature.     The  quality  of  the  morale  involved  determines  the 
quantity  of  freedom  which  a  system  requires,  and  where  one 
feels  called  upon  to  be  autonomous  he  must  be  supplied  with 
unlimited  freedom  whose  reality  is  scarcely  provable.     Give 
man  some  other  than  a  rationalistic  problem,  and  set  before 
him  no  abstract  goal,  but  perfect  humanity,  and  no  arbitrary 
liberty  is  made  necessary;  or,   pause  to  inquire  concerning 
man's   genuine   task   in   life   and   the   ideal   freedom   which 
naturally  arises  in  the  progress  of  humanity  suffices  man. 
Human  striving  contains  an  implicit  liberty  and  just  as  Kant 
made   freedom  depend   upon  the  moral  calling  to  duty,   in 
which  obligation  implied  ability  and  the  ''ought"  the  "can", 
so  it  is  possible  to  subsume  the  freedom  of  the  will  under 
the  striving  of  humanity.     The  World  of  Humanity,  whose 
forms  of  science  and  art,  ethics  and  worship,  reveal  the  in- 
dependence of  man's  spiritual  nature  is  only  the  larger  ex- 
pression of  this  formal  freedom  which,  in  culture,  appears  as 
architectonic. 


4 — THE    UNITY    OF    FREEDOM    AND    FATE 

Proof  of  human  freedom  is  not  to  be  sought  in  the 
w^orld  of  nature,  but  in  the  world  of  humanity,  wherein 
man  is  permitted  to  act  as  man.  If  in  this  realm  man 
shows  no  ability  to  create,  then  one  may  retreat  to  the 
category  of  causality  and  seek  such  satisfaction  as  deter- 
minism may  offer.  But  the  history  of  man  is  the  history 
of  freedom  in  the  conception  of  ideal  motives  as  well  as 
in  the  creation  of  ideal  interests.  Neither  hedonism  nor 
intuitionism  can  account  for  the  spontaneity  of  man's  con- 
sciousness, much  less  can  they  with  their  ideals  of  desire 
and  duty  content  the  striving  of  a  creature  who  feels  capable 
of  selfhood  and  worldhood.  Both  views  overlook  the  fact 
that  man  is  creative,  and  that  instead  of  contending  with 
nature  for  the  sake  of  some  supposed  aequilibrium  arbitrii, 
man  aspires  to  develop  an   independent  order  of  being  in 


236  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

which  his  humanity  may  thrive.  Where  ethics  has  not 
discovered  the  peculiar  realm  of  spiritual  life  to  which  its 
ideals  belong,  it  has  exhausted  its  moral  earnestness  in  op- 
posing one  of  the  most  valuable  ideas  of  the  human  under- 
standing,— that  of  causality.  Freedom,  however,  cannot 
come  in  as  causality  departs,  and  he  who  would  adjust 
himself  to  human  experience  must  have  sufficient  insight  to 
survey  freedom  and  law  at  once.  Punctual  freedom  is 
wanting  in  both  validity  and  value.  Genuine  freedom  is 
no  such  function  as  that  which  hedonism  and  rigorism  deny 
and  affirm  so  ineffectually;  it  consists  of  the  entire  superior- 
ity of  culture  over  nature  and  invests  the  major  morality 
with  its  intrinsic  character. 

Conventional  theories  have  not  touched  freedom  at  all; 
determinism  and  libertarianism  have  unearthed  a  struggle 
which  may  go  on  in  the  animal  mind  and  in  man's  too, 
where  his  life  is  one  of  animalism,  but  genuine  freedom,  as 
felt  by  the  superior  man,  is  an  idea  removed  from  these 
moral  disputants.  The  question  is  not  whether  Sophocles 
was  free  in  his  eating  and  drinking,  but  whether,  as  is 
manifestly  the  case,  he  possessed  sufficient  superiority  to 
produce  an  immortal  drama.  It  is  not  whether  heredity 
was  active  in  Shakespeare's  case,  but  whether  he  possessed 
artistic  genius.  The  genius,  who  has  realized  himself  as  a 
human  being,  demonstrates  the  possibility  of  this  higher 
freedom  in  his  peculiar  mingling  of  liberty  and  constraint. 
As  individual,  who  may  arbitrarily  choose  in  favor  of 
classicism,  romanticism,  or  realism,  he  combines  this  free 
choice  with  a  certain  general  genius  which  makes  him  a 
painter  in  spite  of  himself,  so  that  his  work  is  the  unique 
product  of  conscious  selection  among  methods  and  uncon- 
scious constraint  as  to  art  itself.  In  all  worthy  work,  man's 
individuality  naturally  associates  Itself  with  natural  law  to 
effect  something  beyond  nature  in  either  her  individual  or 
general  forms.  This  is  a  freedom  which  links  Itself  to  man's 
moral  calling  and  makes  possible  the  achievement  of  his 
ethical  vocation. 

Nature  abhors  freedom,  but  she  is  no  more  friendly  to 
culture;  she  disowns  the  "free  moral  agent",  but  the  life 
of  the  human  spirit  is  equally  alien  to  her.    Ethics  need  only 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  237 

decide  which  view  of  liberty  is  the  more  desirable,  the 
formal  freedom  of  human  striving  or  the  dynamic  freedom 
of  the  punctual  will.  The  latter  places  man  in  an  eccentric 
position  and  marvels  when  he  displays  any  human  poise  or 
puts  forth  any  initiative.  But  this  dynamic  view  of  arbitrary 
will  has  never  met  the  question  of  life  in  its  totality.  When 
the  centrifugal  force  of  human  striving  Is  made  the  measure 
of  human  action,  it  will  appear  that  man  and  his  moral 
life  have  no  need  of  the  dynamic  form  of  freedom  which 
just  acts  without  reason  or  purpose.  Striving  is  the  proper 
substitute  for  liberty,  and  the  arguments  for  and  against  a 
volitional  equilibrium  are  ineffectual  where  the  total  issue  of 
life  is  the  question  which  is  raised.  In  the  escape  from 
freedom  lies  the  emancipation  of  humanistic  ethics,  and 
genuine  humanity  which  seeks  to  preserve  its  self-respect 
owes  no  more  allegiance  to  a  duty  which  drives  than  to  a 
desire  which  leads.  Man  is  neither  free  nor  fated,  but  he 
has  over  him  a  human  vocation  which  inspires  him  to  com- 
bine law  and  liberty  with  the  result  of  achieving  a  full,  free 
humanity. 

Such  humanity  is  the  living  synthesis  of  fate  and  free- 
dom, for  man  In  his  capacity  of  both  creature  and  character 
is  responsible  to  both  forms  of  constraint.  Religion  reveals 
this  In  Its  mysterious  fusion  of  Divine  regnancy  and  human 
responsibility.  Yet  when  man  by  freedom  realizes  himself 
as  a  human  being,  he  also  satisfies  the  demands  of  a  Being 
similarly  Inclined  toward  virtue.  Humanity  thus  witnesses 
a  cooperation  of  Infinite  and  finite  wherein  man  freely 
participates  In  the  larger  order  of  righteousness  in  and 
around  him.  All  humanity  Is  the  product  of  free  fate,  of 
individual  and  universal,  of  liberty  and  law;  and  when  the 
position  of  man  Is  appreciated  and  his  problem  properly 
stated,  there  will  be  no  occasion  to  puzzle  over  a  casuistical 
curiosity  which  now  deserves  to  be  forever  forgotten.  A 
full  conception  of  humanity  cannot  be  elaborated  upon  the 
basis  of  more  liberty,  but  must  involve  something  beyond 
man's  personality  and  beneath  the  surface  of  his  conscious- 
ness; hence  the  "free  moral  agent"  must  be  surveyed  as  a 
character  of  free-fate  whose  influence  ends  not  with  his 
moral  will  but  extends  over  to  his  intellect. 


238  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

The  inner  life  of  man  has  not  failed  to  take  notice  of 
these  ever  interweaving  processes,  yet  it  is  only  as  we  depart 
from  the  idea  of  punctual  liberty  of  the  ego  and  adapt  our 
ethics  to  the  free  striving  of  humanity  that  we  are  able  to 
account  for  these  strange  syntheses.  In  the  human  mind  the 
mingling  of  liberty  with  law  assumes  the  form  of  inner 
and  outer  modes  of  being.  Hereby  man,  situated  so  uniquely 
in  the  universe,  is  permitted  to  preserve  his  ethical  self- 
respect  amid  the  dull  laws  of  the  physical  world  and  the 
vagaries  of  the  individual;  and  he  maintains  his  character 
as  a  self-propelled  human  being  detached  from  the  world 
and  delivered  from  mere  temperament.  How  blind  has 
libertarianism  been  to  the  fact  that  freedom  means  emanci- 
pation from  the  immediacy  of  both  physical  and  psychical 
orders,  or  from  the  phenomenal  world  of  things  and  persons. 
Beyond  these  unorganized  forms  of  the  world  lies  the 
freedom  of  inner  humanity.  No  longer  will  mechanical 
motives,  called  either  law  or  liberty  and  situated  external 
to  the  genuine  nature  of  man,  suffice  to  account  for  that 
synthesis  of  freedom  and  fate  that  the  conscious  and  un- 
conscious life  of  humanity  makes  possible.  Something  more 
systematic  is  demanded  and  the  free  moral  agency  of  the 
individual  must  give  way  before  the  genius  of  humanity 
within  man.  Thereby  inner  consciousness  is  united  with 
outer  constraint  so  that  man  may  perform  a  genuine  act  of 
humanity. 


THE  ETHICAL  DEIVIANDS  OF  HUMANITY 


Humanity  arises  within  man  as  the  very  essence  of  his 
being,  but  it  is  none  the  less  elicited  from  without.  Hence 
it  comes  about  that  man's  humanity  makes  certain  demands 
upon  him,  and  these  he  interprets  as  obligations.  Such  is 
man's  position  in  the  world  that  he  may  make  demands  upon 
nature  whence  he  expects  happiness,  or  in  reverse  order  may 
feel  it  his  duty  to  render  something  to  the  world.  Hence  if 
we  ask,  "What  shall  we  receive?"  we  are  hedonistic;  if  we 
say,  "What  must  we  give?"  our  morals  are  characteristic. 
Duty  is  a  debt  to  be  paid,  not  to  nature  or  society,  but  to 
the  one  world  of  humanity.  To  nature  we  owe  nothing  and 
she  has  not  the  capacity  to  receive  our  free-will  offerings; 
but  to  humanity  we  owe  everything  since  it  is  for  humanity 
that  we  were  destined.  This  condition  of  affairs,  however, 
does  not  suffer  man  to  indulge  in  any  undue  complacency, 
for  such  is  the  seriousness  of  life  and  the  uncertainty  of  its 
outcome  that  something  like  moral  toil  is  made  necessary  to 
him  who  acquits  himself  of  his  humanity.  Man  must  take 
his  place  in  the  endless  course  of  human  striving,  and  how- 
ever glorious  life  may  be,  it  does  not  leave  us  without  a 
sense  of  responsibility. 

The  rationalistic  view  of  life  is  such  as  to  cause  man  to 
doubt  his  abilities,  and  the  yoke  of  a  categorical  imperative 
imposes  a  burden  which  is  not  easy  or  light ;  hence  wc  do  not 
wonder  that  Kant  fled  to  the  shades  of  the  eternal  cypresses 
when  he  sought  the  fulfillment  of  his  ideal.  Sheer  con- 
science, with  its  self-styled  dictates,  need  not  expect  man  to 
obey;  mere  morality  with  its  arbitrary  demands  has  no  real 
claim  upon  man.  Nevertheless,  the  destiny  of  man  is  such 
as  to  imply  responsibility,  and  when  we  recall  how  our 
humanity  calls  upon  us  to  strive  that  we  may  assert  our 
spiritual  character,  wc  can  understand  how  it  is  that  man 

239 


240  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

should  Interpret  this  demand  as  a  duty.  There  are  two 
distinct  ways  in  which  this  demand  may  be  understood,  just 
as  there  are  two  forms  of  human  freedom.  The  demand 
which  humanity  makes  upon  us  may  assume  the  immediate 
form  of  individual  duty,  which  is  the  counterpart  of  char- 
acteristic morality  as  rectitude;  or  it  may  be  viewed  more 
inclusively  as  a  sense  of  responsibility  comparable  to  that 
sense  of  disinterestedness  which  revealed  humanity's  attitude 
toward  the  right.  Duty  indicates  the  attitude  of  man  toward 
some  law  of  reason ;  human  responsibility  relates  man  to  the 
inner  world  of  humanity  with  its  august  claims  upon  our 
activities. 

I — THE    DEMAND    AS    INDIVIDUAL    DUTY 

Prominent  among  the  questions  which  associate  them- 
selves with  duty  arises  the  problem  concerning  the  source  of 
the  impulse.  It  seems  obvious  that  man  should  have  desires, 
but  it  is  not  so  clear  why  he  responds  to  an  imperceptible 
and  remote  interest  called  duty.  The  conception  of  man 
which  has  guided  our  discussion  thus  far  has  been  a  conativc 
one  and  the  ideal  has  been  that  of  the  man  striving.  Yet 
this  ideal  has  not  presented  itself  explicitly,  but  in  connection 
with  the  minor  functions  of  human  nature.  Thus  the  sense 
of  striving,  which  ever>^here  invests  humanity,  assumed  a 
direct  form  in  desire,  as  also  in  the  conquest  of  immediacy 
which  is  supposed  to  lead  to  happiness.  Why  should  it  not 
reappear  in  sterner  semblance  as  an  ideal  of  duty  where 
direct  contact  with  reason  takes  the  place  of  the  immediacy 
of  nature  in  desire  ?  Both  of  these  ideals  overlook  the  fact 
that  man  is  not  related  to  one  hemisphere  of  life  alone,  and 
in  defiance  of  the  implicit  unity  of  spiritual  life  in  sense 
and  reason,  naturistic  and  characteristic  ethics  assume  that 
man  can  live  first  without  duties  and  then  without  desires. 
So  complete  is  the  plan  of  human  striving  and  so  resourceful 
the  character  of  our  humanity  that  there  Is  no  need  to  take 
refuge  in  either  of  these  eccentrics  of  morality. 

The  ethics  of  duty  has  made  progress  in  the  world,  be- 
cause it  has  symbolized  man's  Impulse  to  attain  to  pure 
humanity.    In  the  sublime  Instance  of  Kant,  the  office  of  duty 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  241 

was  magnified  by  the  abrupt  departure  from  both  sense  and 
reason  indicated  in  the  whole  critical  system;  for  the  orig- 
inator of  the  categorical  Imperative  had  already  relinquished 
his  claim  upon  the  speculative  view  of  the  world  before  he 
set  himself  at  variance  with  the  practical  appreciation  of 
life  according  to  inclination.  Only  duty  was  left,  and  its 
ideal  exactments  were  urged  with  a  fury  born  of  despair. 
We  need  not  Kant  to  tell  us  that  we  cannot  live  without 
duty,  but  the  full  imperative  of  humanity  informs  us  that 
we  cannot  live  without  desire.  In  the  dual  order  of  sense 
and  reason,  whose  reconciliation  has  not  yet  appeared,  it  is 
expected  that  man  should  respond  to  the  sense  of  fitness 
which  firmly  binds  him  to  the  inner  world  without  releasing 
him  from  the  claims  of  the  outer  one,  so  that  desire  is  as 
imperative  as  duty.  Kant  recognizes  some  such  general  truth 
when  he  postulates  a  certain  Interesse  which  is  possessed  by 
the  practical  reason  (Krit.  d.  prac.  Vernunft,  SS.  260-262), 
just  as  at  a  later  period  he  introduces  a  higher  and  disin- 
terested consideration  of  humanity  in  the  form  of  an  asthe- 
tical  judgment  which  transcends  the  interests  of  both  sense 
and  reason,  of  pleasure  and  of  virtue  {Kirt,  d,  Urtheil- 
skraft. ) 

Characteristic  ethics  which  here  assumes  the  form  of 
duty,  is  recognized  in  connection  with  moral  law.  Whether 
this  can  be  harmonized  with  the  sense  of  freedom  lying  at 
the  heart  of  this  method  of  morality  depends  upon  how  the 
ideas  of  liberty  and  law  are  understood.  As  the  argument 
stands  in  the  records  of  intultlonism,  there  Is  a  sharp  con- 
tradiction in  a  theory  of  will  which  now  is  looked  upon  as 
free  and  then  Is  bound  by  obligation  to  an  ethical  law; 
and  the  advocate  of  free-will  has  not  seen  that  his  argu- 
ment for  liberty  must  be  carried  on  in  opposition  to  law  in 
general,  and  not  physical  law  in  particular.  In  itself,  law 
stands  for  universality  in  form  and  necessity  in  operation, 
whereby  It  combines  the  Law  of  Identity,  which  asserts, 
Whatever  Is,  is,  with  the  law  of  Sufficient  Reason,  asserting. 
Whatever  happens  has  a  cause.  Metaphysics  adapts  these 
fundamental  logical  principia  and  constructs  them  in  an 
ontological  scheme,  with  substance  as  its  center,  as  well  as 
a  cosmologlcal  one,  having  causality  as  its  basis.     Nature, 


242  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

with  its  forms  of  space  and  time,  matter  and  motion,  adapts 
itself  to  such  a  category  of  law,  realizing  it  in  static  and 
dynamic  forms. 

Where  the  moral  world-order  is  surveyed  from  this 
standpoint,  the  interpretation  of  duty  as  law  is  by  no  means 
clear;  for  where  the  steadfast  forms  of  nature  lend  them- 
selves to  the  logical  laws  of  identity  and  sufficient  reason, 
the  strivings  of  the  human  will  are  so  inclined  to  the 
individual  and  arbitrary  that  the  imposition  of  law  upon  a 
free  being  seems  hopeless  at  the  start  and  fruitless  at  the 
outcome.  While  ethics  may  approximate  to  the  general 
requisite  of  law  and  thus  elaborate  maxims  which  shall 
possess  universality  of  form  and  necessity  of  content,  it  can 
never  aspire  to  present  any  principles  of  will  to  compare 
with  the  intellectual  principles  known  to  logic.  The  at- 
tempt to  accomplish  this  can  scarcely  advance  beyond  the 
barren  rationalism  of  Cudworth  and  Clarke,  or  the  formalism 
of  Butler's  view  of  conscience  and  Kant's  categorical  im- 
perative. Such  a  difficulty  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  will, 
having  a  different  nature  from  that  of  the  intellect,  is  not 
expected  to  pursue  the  same  methods  of  conduct,  so  that 
the  ideal  of  a  uniform  and  compeUing  principle,  which  must 
command  the  assent  of  the  mind,  is  not  directly  applicable 
to  such  an  inner  principle  as  the  will.  Characteristic  ethics 
stands  in  need  of  restatement,  after  which  can  follow  the 
reconstruction  necessary  to  relate  duty  to  the  imperative  de- 
mands of  humanity. 

Such  reconstruction  involves  a  clear  recognition  of  the 
half-real  nature  of  duty.  Unlike  the  antique  notion  of  the 
good,  duty  indicates  no  finished  product  which  man  should 
imitate  as  his  ideal,  but  it  consists  of  something  which  de- 
pends upon  the  will  of  man  for  its  realization.  Nevertheless, 
duty  is  not  conceived  of  as  wholly  unreal,  in  which  case  it 
could  not  be  construed  as  something  universally  binding,  but 
possesses  a  metaphysical  status  wholly  different  from  that  of 
substance,  cause,  space  or  time.  In  a  certain  suggestive 
sense,  the  modern  ideal  of  duty  is  in  the  same  peculiar 
position  between  thought  and  thing  as  was  the  ancient  notion 
of  virtue  when  Socrates  redeemed  it  from  Sophistry  and 
reduced  it  to  general  definition,  without  carrying  it  forward 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  243 

to  the  ontological  place  of  Plato's  realism.  Duty  has  a 
conceptual  form,  so  that  it  is  neither  real  nor  unreal.  When 
such  duty  is  appropriated  by  man  it  assumes  certain  repre- 
sentative forms  adaptable  to  will  and  intellect.  Accord- 
mgly.  It  is  said.  Duty  is  that  which  man  ought  to  do,  as  it  is 
further  claimed,  Duty  is  that  which  ought  to  be.  The  idea 
of  "that  which  ought  to  be"  involves  a  moral  ontology 
whose  demands  are  far  beyond  the  powers  of  rationalistic 
comprehension ;  for  it  is  no  simple  task  to  unite  the  intellec- 
tualism  of  Plato's  ideal  of  the  good  with  Kant's  volun- 
taristic  maxim  of  duty.  In  the  history  of  modern  ethics, 
the  law  of  duty  has  been  formal  in  the  intellect  and  in- 
fluential with  the  will,  but  it  has  not  assumed  the  sure 
position  which  the  ideal  of  law  suggests. 

2 THE    SELF-CONTRADICTION    OF    INDIVIDUAL    WILL 

The  problem  of  duty  assumes  a  more  hopeless  form 
when  the  mysterious  character  of  the  will  comes  under  our 
scrutiny.  This  problem  may  be  introduced  conveniently  in 
connection  with  the  simple  function  of  judgment,  without 
which  we  cannot  indicate  the  principles  of  necessity  and 
universality  involved  in  the  notion  of  law.  With  the  in- 
tellect, the  function  of  judgment  plays  a  part  so  convincing 
that  no  dispute  can  arise,  except  as  to  particular  forms  like 
the  analytical  and  synthetical.  In  discussing  the  nature 
of  rectitude,  we  took  the  opportunity  to  indicate  how  logical 
law  guides  us  in  elaborating  the  connection  between  subject 
and  predicate.  The  function  appears  with  the  process  of 
feeling,  whereby  we  develop  judgments  of  taste  which  repre- 
sent the  beauty  of  certain  forms  of  nature  or  creations  of 
art.  Fluid  as  is  its  form  and  subjective  as  is  its  character, 
human  feeling  possesses  suflficient  stability  to  assume  a 
propositional  form,  and  just  as  we  say,  "The  rose  is  red", 
so  wc  may  add,  "The  rose  is  beautiful."  With  the  will, 
the  case  docs  not  stand  thus,  for  there  are  no  judgments  of 
will,  nor  can  there  be  any.  Both  intellect  and  affection 
trace  back  to  conscious  processes  with  definable  qualities, 
like  the  sensation  of  color  or  the  feeling  of  pleasure,  and 
for   this  reason   ideas  may  be   related   to  appropriate  char- 


244  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

acteristics  in  the  conventional  form  of  judgment.  The 
will,  however,  presents  no  such  dualism  of  thing  and  quality, 
and  hence  does  not  permit  us  to  relate  two  forms  of  one 
and  the  same  mental  product,  and  the  very  expression, 
"Judgment  of  will,"  indicates  nothing  which  the  mind  can 

conceive. 

As  a  product  of  consciousness,  the  will  requires  special 
treatment   and   a   review  of   this   may   serve   to   reveal   the 
source   of   our   present   difficulty   with   regard   to   duty   and 
its   problematic    form.      The    introspective   method   of   psy- 
chology seems  incapable  of  objectifying  any  quality  of  cona- 
tion, however  directly  it  may  reveal  the  attributes  of  cogni- 
tion and  affection.     So  intimately  is  the  will  related  to  our 
inner  consciousness  that  it  seems  impossible  to  detach  it  and 
survey   its   content   as   something   independent   of   the    self. 
Human  conation  is  of  the  essence  of  human  striving  and  no 
analysis  of   mind   can   draw   lines   of   demarcation   between 
them.     This  singular  condition  of  consciousness  appears  in 
sharp  outline  when  we  resort  to  certain  characteristic  state- 
ments concerning  our  introspective   data,   where   it  appears 
that  conation  is  indescribable.     The  conscious  subject  may 
speak  of  simple  cognition  as  a  sensation  of  color  or  tone,  of 
immediate  afiFection  as  a  feeling  of  pleasure  or  pain,  but  the 
conative  elements  of  impulse  or  striving  cannot  be  reduced 
to  such  expressive  phrases.     One  can  only  borrow  forms  of 
cognition  and  affection  and  thus  speak  of  a  ''sense  of  striving" 
or  a  ''feeling  of  effort,"  but  no  original  statement  of  volition 
seems  to  be  forthcoming,  and  this  simplicity  on  the  part  of 
the  will  seems  to  forbid  all  judgment.     There  is  conation, 
but   there   are   no   judgments  of   will,   and   he   who   would 
dictate   duty   to   man   and   outline   maxims   for  his  conduct 
must  not  fail  to  realize  the  mysterious  character  of  our  inner 
striving.     Now  the  will  is  the  wheel  on  which  intuitionism  is 
broken,  and  no  system  of  ethics  can  hope  to  be  volitional  until 
it  revises  its  notion  about  human  liberty  and  abandons  the 
punctual,  private  freedom  of  the  individual.     Humanity,  in 
the  fullness  of  its  ceaseless  striving,  surges  into  these  separate 
crevices  and  makes  the  old  problem  of  law-liberty  a  fallacy  of 
double  question. 

The  peculiar  net-work  in  which  the  conventional  ideal 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  245 

of  duty  involves  itself  appears  further  when  we  ask.  By 
whom  is  duty  imposed  ?  To  this  question  only  two  possible 
answers  seem  at  all  conceivable,  and  inasmuch  as  nature 
knows  nothing  of  ideal  obligation,  duty  is  imposed  either 
by  man  or  God,  that  is,  by  some  form  of  spiritual  life.  No 
matter  which  side  of  the  argument  we  espouse,  we  are  sure 
to  involve  some  degree  of  contradiction;  and  where  duty 
reduces  us  to  a  sharp  either-or,  we  suspect  that  its  dictates 
are  not  essential  to  the  central  striving  of  humanity.  Sup- 
pose that  duty  is  imposed  by  the  will  of  man  in  the  spirit 
of  autonomy  and  freedom ;  then  the  sovereignty  of  the  God- 
head loses  some  of  its  significance,  inasmuch  as  the  Deity  is 
not  regarded  as  the  author  of  the  moral  law.  On  the  other 
hand,  consider  the  consequence  when  duty  is  imposed  by  the 
Deity  and  sanctioned  by  1 1  is  will;  then  the  supremacy  of 
the  ethical  ideal  is  threatened  and  the  elevation  of  the 
Godhead  involves  the  degradation  of  duty.  Scholasticism 
witnessed  such  a  conflict  in  the  controversy  between  Thomas 
and  Scotus,  while  Protestantism  rehabilitated  it  in  the  war 
between  Calvin  and  Arminius.  He  who  accepts  the  tradi- 
tional statement  of  the  problem  feels  strangely  called  upon 
to  choose  between  Deity  and  duty,  which  can  be  done  only 
at  the  cost  of  spiritual  unity. 

This  dilemma  is  a  most  unhappy  one  and  sadly  recalls 
the  controversy  between  determinism  and  free-will.  Never- 
theless, the  ideal  of  human  striving,  which  elevated  our 
thought  above  the  diremption  of  fate  and  freedom,  may 
now  serve  to  lift  us  to  that  unity  of  inner  life  which 
should  appear  in  the  midst  of  the  demands  that  our  hu- 
manity makes  upon  us.  From  this  standpoint,  it  will  appear 
that  man  is  not  urged  forward  by  competitive  forces  called 
fate  and  freedom,  nor  is  he  under  the  sway  of  two  ideals 
styled  Deity  and  duty,  but  one  and  the  same  humanity 
appeals  to  him  in  the  corresponding  forms  of  inner  and 
outer  life.  Just  as  conscience  is  not  an  occult  principle 
arising  from  the  abyss  of  our  ignorance,  but  consists  rather 
of  our  own  humanity  acting  in  the  form  of  outer  restraint,  so 
duty  is  not  the  dictate  of  any  individual  will  of  man  or 
God,  but  is  made  up  rather  of  that  rational  sense  of  deten- 
tion which  our  spiritual  life  exercises  upon  us.     The  same 


246  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

principle  of  human  striving  which  animates  the  individual 
ego  and  the  whole  of  humanity  has  at  heart  the  perfection  of 
man    by   his   emancipation    from    nature.      In    this   consists 
both  our   fate   and   our   freedom,   and   for  this  our  human 
worldhood  and  selfhood  came  into  existence.     There  is  no 
extra-duty  which  we  impose  upon  our  wills,  or  which  the 
Deity  imposes  upon  us;  there  is  only  one  enormous  demand 
which    humanity   makes   upon    us  when    it   invests   us   with 
spiritual  life  and  informs  us  with  conscience  and  freedom. 
Such  a  unifying  conception  of  spiritual  life  conserves  the 
interests  of  idealistic  ethics  as  well  as  the  religious  notion  of 
the  Absolute.    Of  what  advantage  would  it  be  to  develop  a 
conception  of  morals  which,  in  defiance  of  both  human  and 
divine  sentiments,  should  lead  to  duty  for  the  sake  of  mere 
duty,  or  Deity  for  the  sake  of  Deity?    Autonomy  in  ethics 
and  monotheism  in  religion  are  not  advanced  by  any  such 
formalism,  and  it  is  far  more  valuable  to  work  from  within 
the  wall  of   living  humanity  whence   the   demands  of   the 
ideal  in  both  a  human  and  a  divine  form  may  be  presented. 
To  secure  the  valuable  results  of  imperative  morality,  it  be- 
comes  necessary   to   change   the   center   of   discussion    from 
the  individual  will  to  the  universal  sense  of  striving,   and 
when  once  the  limitations  of  private  volition  are  contrasted 
with  the  broad  plan  of  human   activity  the  need   for  such 
an   alteration    in   view   will    become    apparent.     The   spirit 
of  characteristic  ethics  may   be   preserved   in   the   midst   of 
external   changes;   humanity  will  suffer   no   loss  when   the 
law    of    duty    gives    place    to    a    genuine    sense    of    human 
responsibility. 

3 OBLIGATION  AS  HUMAN  RESPONSIBILITY 

To  reconstruct  the  characteristic  ideal  of  duty  it  has 
been  necessary  to  eliminate  the  idea  of  liberty  as  something 
punctual  and  private,  to  make  place  for  a  recognition  of 
human  striving.  But  this  made  it  necessary  for  us  to  recast 
the  principle  of  law  binding  the  individual  down  to  some 
arbitrary  form  of  commandment,  and  humanity  is  in  no  mood 
for  this  style  of  treatment.  Freedom  is  an  empty  benefit, 
while  duty  is  an  imposition.     Nevertheless,  it  need  not  be 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  247 

supposed  that  all  sense  of  obligation  is  lost,  and  the  emanci- 
pated moral  subject  of  to-day  must  not  presume  that  life 
is  all  privilege  wherein  he  receives  from  the  universe  without 
bemg  called  upon  to  give  of  himself  to  the  world  of  hu- 
manity. Man  still  has  his  obligations  and  without  them  he 
could  be  neither  happy  nor  perfect;  when  these  duties  are 
mterpreted  in  the  light  of  human  responsibilities  and  not  as 
categorical  laws,  the  influence  of  the  human  imperative  will 
not  be  lost.  Therefore  we  may  review  the  leading  points 
of  duty  and  observe  how  easily  they  transfer  their  allegiance 
from  the  realm  of  rationalistic  law  to  that  of  human  obliga- 
tion. 

Certain  formal  notions  of  duty  submit  themselves  for 
consideration  at  the  open  court  of  humanity;  first  among 
these  IS  the  ideal  of  inness  which  characterizes  human  obliga- 
tion. The  intuitional  method  has  insisted  upon  this 
criterion  of  the  moral  ideal,  and  the  value  of  its  contention 
can  in  no  wise  be  gainsaid.  From  this  standpoint,  the 
demands  of  humanity  are  conceived  of  as  coming  from  within 
in  the  form  of  spiritual  impulses  which  have  no  connection 
with  animal  instincts.  The  rationalistic  school  can  only  re- 
gard them  as  dictates  of  reason,  but  their  intellectual  char- 
acter seems  to  acquire  little  more  than  a  negative  quality 
in  its  several  determinations.  There  is  something  man 
ought  to  do.  But  what  is  that  something  which  is  so 
supreme  in  human  life?  The  intuitionist  can  regard  it  in  a 
formal  fashion  only  and  define  it  in  terms  of  itself  as  duty, 
or  that  which  ought  to  be  done.  At  the  same  time,  he 
attempts  to  characterize  it  negatively  as  something  which 
does  not  please  or  profit  the  doer  of  it.  While  such  a 
cramped  notion  of  human  responsibility  may  maintain  the 
inner  independence  of  obligation,  it  indicates  no  path  of 
progress  from  the  striving  individual  to  the  goal  of  his  life. 
Indeed,  characteristic  ethics,  as  will  appear  when  the  whole 
system  is  reviewed,  has  no  idea  of  teleology  and  thus  cannot 
instruct  man  in  the  purpose  of  his  incessant  striving. 

The  just  demands  of  the  striving  human  spirit  may  be 
determined  in  the  light  of  human  destiny,  which  involves 
the  rise  and  progress  of  humanity  as  well  as  its  culmination 
in  an  independent  order  of  being.    This  notion  could  better 


248  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

be  expressed  by  the  term  Bestimmung,  which  is  only  half 
translated  by  the  term  vocation;  its  philosophical  value  is 
great  enough  to  include  the  inner  and  outer  forms  of  human 
striving,  which  are  set  at  variance  with  each  other  by  the 
terms  fate  and  freedom.  So  long  as  an  alien  world  of  nature 
is  thought  to  encompass  man,  anything  like  outer  constraint 
could  only  be  looked  upon  as  inimical  to  the  purpose  of 
human  freedom;  hence  arose  the  acrimonious  contrast  be- 
tween law  and  liberty,  where  the  "free  moral  agent"  felt 
constrained  to  hate  the  one  and  love  the  other.  But  now  it 
appears  that  owing  to  his  amphibolous  position  in  the  uni- 
verse, man  is  not  wholly  under  the  sway  of  physical  law 
nor  does  his  humanity  demand  sharp  rational  freedom. 
Man  has  rather  destiny,  vocation,  and  a  calling  to  humanity, 
or  that  happy  sense  of  constraint  expressed  by  the  German 
term  Bestimmung.  For  the  sake  of  private  freedom  or  some 
liberum  arbitrium  indifferentiae  would  man  forego  the  bless- 
ings of  his  human  vocation?  To  achieve  his  duty  will  he 
relinquish  his  destiny,  and  exchange  his  humanity  for  free 
moral  agency? 

Human  responsibility  finds  man  in  the  actual  human 
order,  not  in  nature  or  reason  alone,  and  in  this  living  field 
of  striving  he  is  swayed  by  free  fate  or  human  destiny.  For 
this  reason,  he  is  not  called  upon  to  obey  the  laws  of  either 
nature  or  reason,  but  it  is  expected  of  him  that  he  will  accept 
human  responsibility.  Such  responsibility  consists  in  assum- 
ing an  appropriate  attitude  toward  the  world,  whose  image 
must  be  reflected  by  the  mind,  just  as  its  activity  is  to  be 
perfected  by  the  human  will.  These  phases  of  human  re- 
sponsibility appear  in  both  culture  and  conduct.  In  order 
to  live  as  a  human  being  man  must  exercise  a  due  amount 
of  intelligence  as  he  surveys  the  world  about  him,  and  even 
in  his  primitive  condition  he  secures  a  certain  amount  of 
valuable  information  upon  which  science  is  destined  to  be 
built.  And  just  as  man,  who  is  not  natural  enough  to  live  an 
animal  life  of  mere  sensation,  has  his  knowledge,  so  he 
begins  to  develop  conduct  in  a  life  which  is  so  detached 
from  the  order  of  nature  as  to  render  necessary  something 
more  than  instinct.  In  this  two-fold  fashion,  man  is  re- 
quired to  assume  a  sort  of  metaphysical  and  moral  responsi- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  249 

bility  due  to  his  original  observations  of  the  outer  and  inner 
forms  of  nature.  Art  and  religion  are  freer  forms  of  human 
creation  and  demand  different  methods  of  explanation,  while 
they,  like  logic  and  ethics,  serve  to  indicate  the  superiority 
of  humanity  over  nature. 

The  ideals  of  humanity,  which  thus  express  themselves 
in  culture  of  the  mind  and  conduct  of  life,  can  be  expressed 
only  as  we  depart  from  immediate  individualized  duty  and 
consider  man  in  the  light  of  one  enormous  human  respon- 
sibility. This  he  assumes  by  knowledge  and  action,  and  in 
the  progress  of  his  spiritual  life  he  develops  a  world  of  his 
own  whence  special  ethical  systems  are  led  to  speak  of  a 
life  according  to  nature,  or  conduct  according  to  reason  when 
the  possibility  of  such  ideals  is  found  in  the  sense  of  human 
responsibility,  which  would  not  suffer  man  to  remain  in  the 
domain  of  immediacy.  In  the  midst  of  his  human  striving, 
man  is  under  the  dominion  of  law  and  duty,  and  instead  of 
acting  so  that  the  maxim  of  his  conduct  might  become  uni- 
versal law,  he  has  created  a  moral  world-order  peculiar  to  the 
genius  of  his  humanity,  the  product  of  both  conduct  and 
culture.  This  has  been  a  happy  burden  to  the  true  child  of 
humanity  who  has  no  other  thought  than  the  perfection  of 
his  implicit  spiritual  life.  In  this  mood  of  eternal  cheerful- 
ness, these  aspiring  human  subjects  have  been  what  St. 
James  was  fond  of  calling  doers  of  the  word  or  active  egos 
who  were  not  content  with  mere  action  or  consciousness,  but 
strove  for  some  rational  deed  which  should  stand  for  the 
creative  work  of  humanity.  In  his  contemplative  conquest, 
man  has  enjoyed  the  freedom  of  his  fate,  while  he  has 
found  in  his  humanity  a  yoke  which  is  easy  and  a  burden 
that  is  light. 

By  assuming  the  responsibility  of  life  both  in  thought  and 
action,  man  evinces  a  definite  form  of  spontaneity  which 
carries  him  onward  out  of  the  confines  of  immediate  tem- 
poral, special  existence.  This  is  not  done  without  risk,  and 
the  positing  of  an  independent  order  of  being  beyond  nature 
leads  man  into  an  atmosphere  of  life  the  very  opposite  of  the 
easy  optimism  that  characterized  the  final  view  of  naturism 
in  the  ideal  of  eudaemonia.  Human  responsibility  invites 
conflict  and  since  man  occupies  an  amphibolous  position  in 


250  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

the  world  his  departure  from  nature  is  calculated  to  lead 
hirn  into  doubt  and  moral  despair.  Culture  and  ideal  con- 
duct are  not  always  the  good  angels  of  our  life,  since  they 
create  needs  which  experience  cannot  satisfy,  as  well  as 
ideals  which  seem  likely  to  remain  unrealized.  In  his  at- 
tempt to  accomplish  the  demands  of  his  inner  nature,  man 
can  think  of  no  other  method  than  that  of  denial,  and  just 
as  the  climax  of  naturistic  ethics  found  him  applying  the 
principle  of  moderation,  characteristic  morality  ends  in 
renunciation.  If  man  cannot  assert  his  spiritual  character 
in  the  midst  of  nature  he  can  negate  his  being  in  the  world 
of  sense,  and  thus  prepare  the  way,  so  he  imagines,  for  the 
life  of  spirit.  Such  an  attempt  assumes  the  form  of  rigorism 
whose  interests  are  those  of  humanity,  however  inappro- 
priate its  methods  may  be. 


VI 

THE  LIFE  OF  RIGORISxM 

.  As  the  completion  of  Naturistic  Ethics  witnessed  the 
rise  of  eudaemonism,  so  Characteristic  Ethics  is  destined  to 
end  m  ngor.sm.  Where,  as  in  the  case  of  the  former, 
pleasure  and  desire,  utility  and  well-being,  lead  man  to 
postulate  the  ultimate  ideal  of  free  activity  in  the  world  of 
,mmed.acy,  the  contrary  ideals  of  conscience  and  rectitude, 
freedom  and  duty  urge  him  to  strive  after  a  form  of  sheer 
morality  which  neutralizes  all  human  interests.  Both  views 
seek  to  apprehend  life  as  a  whole,  and  where  one  ends  Tn 
moderation  the  other  cultimates  in  renunciation,  while  the 
joyous  pursuit  of  the  immediate  gives  way  to  a  grim  realiza- 

^rre   the   unity   of  life,   they   are   not   ignorant  of  man's 
position  in  the  universe  or  of  his  relation  to  his  humanity. 

1 — THE    IDEAL    OF   RENUNCIATION 

In  striking  contrast  to  the  genial  ideal  of  eudaemonism, 
characteristic  ethics  upholds  a  harsh  rigorism  of  renunciation 
tudaemonism  was  a  theory  expressing  the  belief  that  life 
cannot  be  wholly  receptive,  but  demands  a  certain  degree  of 
reaction  on  the  part  of  humanity.  But  eudaemonism  availed 
Itself  of  purely  aesthetical  resources  which  were  expected  to 
yield  permanent  and  impersonal  pleasure.  Where  activity 
was  involved  ,t  never  implied  striving,  and  its  general  char- 
acter was  that  of  artistic  play.  The  value  of  ideal  activity, 
as  suggested  by  both  ancient  and  modern  thinkers,  consists  in 
the  appropriate  form  of  occupation  which  fills  out  the  pro- 
portions of  man  s  life,  thus  preventing  ennui.  Man's 
superiority  to  hedonic  naturism  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  he 
craves  ideal  pleasures  in  response  to  which  the  world  of  art 
has  been  created.     Eudaemonism  is  thus  a  phase  of  aesthe- 

251 


252  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

ticism,  for  in  the  quest  of  contemplation  man  is  also  seeking 

peace  or  ataraxy.  ,        .  .      .  rr 

But  the  rigorist  believes  that  ideal  activity  is  not  suth- 
cient  to  achieve  the  victory  of  spirit  over  sense,  and  in  seeic- 
ing  some  more  regorous  means  it  appeals  to  religion  where  its 
rival  had  turned  toward  art.  The  fundamental  principle 
here  involved  is  that  of  spiritual  striving,  but  in  practical 
experience  the  doctrine  amounts  to  a  radical  activism  accord- 
ing to  whose  tenets  life  is  made  to  equal  labor.  The  moral 
commandment  thus  becomes  a  commandment  to  act,  the 
result  of  which  is  moralism.  "Look  at  Hellenism,  the 
Italian  Renaissance,  or  French  culture,"  they  say;  ''were 
men  better  moralists  because  they  were  superior  artists  ? 
Forgetting  that  at  times  when  men  are  most  thoroughly 
surrendered  to  morality,  they  are  not  intellectually  alive  to 
the  meaning  of  life  and  the  essence  of  the  world,  the 
moralistic  view  of  life  has  insisted  that  strict  activity  is 
paramount.  Labor  has  been  commended  because  it  tends  to 
subdue  men,  while  the  exciting  eiiects  of  artistic  activity 
have  been  condemned  as  unsafe.  Let  man  be  kept  at 
work  and  he  will  be  out  of  danger  for  the  time  being, 
while  the  fatigue  resulting  from  his  efforts  will  tend  to 
cripple  his  powers  for  vicious  pleasure. 

Eudaemonism  may  not  aim  at  the  spiritual,  but  it  docs 
try  to  elevate  man  above  nature;  rigorism  seeks  to  reduce 
his  sensuous  existence  to  a  minimum.  Both  estimates  of 
man  agree  that  life  should  not  be  submerged  in  nature,  but 
where  eudaemonism  counsels  man  to  touch  sense  lightly  by 
the  way  of  mere  suggestion,  rigorism  insists  that  he  abandon 
it  altogether  and  accept  virtue  as  such.  Eudaemonism 
seizes  the  mind  of  man  in  a  moment  of  classic  contemplation 
and  leads  him  to  blend  spirit  and  sense  in  such  a  way  that 
virtue  shall  seem  natural  and  beautiful.  Rigorism  is  not 
without  artistic  merit,  but  its  worth  consists,  not  in  beauty, 
but  in  sublimity,  and  its  method  is  the  romantic  rather  than 
the  classic.  The  spectacle  of  a  living  and  dying  rigorist 
has  something  artistic  about  it,  for  he  stands  fixed  like 
Donatello*s  St.  George  or  enters  paradise  through  Ghiberti  s 
bronze  doors.  Again,  eudaemonism  is  optimistic  in  its  culti- 
vation of  the  garden  of  immediacy,  for  it  assumes  that  nature 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  253 

contains  man  and  that  his  endeavors  can  be  accomplished  and 
accounted  for  upon  the  basis  of  what  is  given.  Rigorism 
is  pessimistic  and  calls  upon  man  to  renounce  the  "world" 
in  which  he  lives  and  the  flesh  that  envelops  him,  and  where 
the  naturistic  ideal  expects  man  to  accept  life,  the  character- 
istic one  demands  that  he  reject  it. 

2 — LIFE  AS  SINFUL 

The    traditional    view   of   our   humanity   as   shared    by 
both  schools  overlooks  the  fact  that  man  is  both  able  and 
willing    to    renounce,    not    only    happiness,    but    life    itseJf. 
They  assume  that  man  is  by  nature  a  creature  of  eudaemonia 
and  that  he  can  only  strive  to  be  happy;  the  only  difference 
in  their  methods  is  found  in  the  fact  that  one  allows  man 
to  be  happy  directly,  while  the  other  insists  that  he  shall 
first  deserve  happiness.     But  man  as  human  can  will  against, 
as  well  as  for,  himself  and  the  world  enveloping  him,  and 
his  desire  so  constitutes  him  that  pain  as  well  as  pleasure 
may  be  an  object  of  interest  and  a  point  toward  which  he 
strives.     Hence  renunciation  is  as  possible  a  path  of  conduct 
as   moderation,   and   no   excess   of   fanaticism   is   needed   to 
cause   man    to   turn   against   nature   and   strive   for   nothing 
as    such.      The    bland    hedonic    notion    prevailing    in    both 
schools  of  ethics  is  invalidated  by  the  manifest  tendency  on 
the  part  of  man   to  deny  himself,  and  where  nature  uses 
both  life  and  death  in  the  perfection  of  its  creatures,  man 
learns  to  die  that  he  may  live.     Thus  it  comes  about  that 
man  learns  to  accept  the  death-idea,  based  as  this  is  on  an 
instinct  as  strong,  though  not  as  clear,  as  the  desire  for  life, 
and   in  the  midst  of  this  consciousness  it  becomes  possible 
for  rare  souls  who  are  raised  above  the  struggle  for  life  to 
have   a   peculiar  sentiment  of   death,   a  condition   at  times 
paralleled  by  the  vehement  passion  for  destruction  aroused 
by    the    unhappy    circumstances    of    a    turbulent    existence. 
Contemplating  the  shade  as  well  as  the  light  of  life,  man 
does  not  hesitate   to   abandon   the   unintelligible   heights  of 
joy  and  descend  to  the  "valley  of  vision."     He  is  not  only 
willing  but  anxious  to  suffer,   and  while  not  hard-hearted 
he  is  not  wholly  above  cruelty.     Duty  has  made  him  a 


254  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


The  impulse  toward  renunciation  appears  In  the  awful 
sentiment  that  life  itself  is  sinful.  The  inner  history  of 
our  humanity  is  not  wanting  in  such  nihilistic  ideals.  Among 
the  Chinese  the  wisdom  of  Laotsze  inculcates  "doing  noth- 
ing" as  a  means  of  attaining  to  the  negative  Tao,  which 
"does  nothing  in  its  regular  course  for  the  sake  of  doing  it, 
and  so  there  is  nothing  which  it  does  not  do."  (Tao  Teh 
King,  Pt.  II,  Ch.  37)  ;  a  consistent  nihilism  further  in- 
dicated by  the  metaphorical  characters  "Dumb  Inaction" 
and  "Do-Nothing"  (Writings  of  Kwang  Sze,  Bk.  xxii 
Pt.  II  Sect.  XV ).  A  more  active  form  of  negation  ap- 
pears in  the  Bhagavad-Gita  which  treats  life  as  the  result 
of  sin  and  seeks  to  inculcate  such  a  Yoga  discipline  as  to 
do  away  with  one's  sense  of  individuality  and  tlie  desire  for 
personal  action.  The  ideal  man  behaves  like  the  tortoise 
who  withdraws  from  the  world  and  retires  to  his  inner 
being.  This  notion  which  makes  man  distrustful  of  exist- 
ence, is  even  more  fatal  to  his  sense  of  selfhood.  It  inflicts 
upon  him  the  consciousness  that  he  himself  ought  not  to  be, 
because  in  his  very  personality  there  is  something  wrong, 
so  that  he  is  of  no  value  in  the  world.  It  was  in  this  spirit 
that  Schopenhauer's  contention  for  the  universal  will-to-live 
set  him  in  opposition  to  the  egoistic  will-to-live,  as  indeed 
to  the  principle  of  individuation,  and  led  him  to  select  from 
Calderon's  "Life  is  a  Dream"  the  dictum  declaring  that 
man's  greatest  crime  consists  in  being  born  ( fVelt  als  IVille 
u.  Vors.  §63).  The  world  in  its  totality  seems  to  be  no 
place  of  individuals  and,  as  we  shall  see  in  Part  Four,  the 
harsh  effects  of  renunciatory  morals  can  be  ofiset  only  by 
adopting  an  idea  of  selfhood  which  shall  be  consistent  with 
the  totality  of  the  world.  The  existent  self  with  its 
natural  desires  cannot  assert  its  being  in  contrast  with  the 
world-whole,  so  that  the  ideal  of  renunciation  does  not  have 
difiicult>'  in  persuading  man  that  his  is  an  evil  life.  Rigorism 
thus  becomes,  as  it  were,  a  reality,  wherein  negation  and 
pain  have  a  constructive  significance,  while  selfhood  is  re- 
pudiated as  something  fundamentally  bad.  As  Pascal  put 
it,  le  moi  est  hdissable  (Pensees,  Sect.  vii.  75,  Hachette,) 
and  as  will  appear  at  the  close  of  this  work  the  ethics  of 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  255 

selfhood  ascends  only  as  the  ethics  of  renunciation  descends. 
Yet  it  is  not  the  ego  as  ego  which  feels  the  criminality 
of  his  existence,  but  the  ego  as  subject  of  desire.     In  Bud- 
dhism, the  root  of  all  evil  is  found  in  desire  whose  removal 
is  supposed   to   bring  about  salvation.     Among  the  several 
attitudes  which  man  may  sustain  toward  the  world,  there 
is  that  of  expressing  desire  for  it  in   its  sensuousness  and 
immediacy,  for  by  his  very  nature  man  desires  life  in  the 
world.       This    life-desire,     which     renunciation     seeks     to 
neutralize,  contains  something  beyond  itself  as  a  process  of 
experience,   for  in   it   is  found  an   inherent  sense  of  value. 
Indeed,   as  we  shall  see  in   Part  Four,  the  most  adequate 
psychology  of  value  seems  to  consist  in  the  desirable.    When, 
therefore,    renunciation    attacks   desire,    it   directs   its   forces 
against   the   very   citadel   of   life,   and   brings   about   man's 
redemption  upon  the  basis  of  his  destruction.     This  is  the 
method    indicated    by    Buddhism    in    connection    with    the 
"Noble  Truth"  as  expressed  in  "Wheel  of  the  Law",  or,  as 
Rhy    Davids    translates    it,    "Kingdom    of    Righteousness." 
It  contains  the  truth  concerning  the  fact  and  cause  of  suffer- 
ing, as  also  the  removal  of  it  by  means  of  religious  exercise. 
When    the   "Book   of   the    Great   Decease"   tells   how   the 
Blessed  One  rejected  life,  it  notes  (§  10)  how  he  broke  out 
into  a  hymn  of  exultation: 

"His  sum  of  life  the  sage  renounced, 
The  cause  of  life  immeasurable  or  small; 
With  inward  joy  and  calm,  he  broke. 
Like  coat  of  mail  his  life's  own  cause." 
The  form  of  Nirvana  attained  is  of  the  living  nature 
of   Arahatship,    experienced    when    both   desire   and    indivi- 
duality   are    practically   extinguished    by   a   combination   of 
contemplation    and    asceticism.     This    living    Nirvana    was 
perhaps    in    Schopenhauer's   mind    when    he   contended    for 
negation  of  the  will-to-live  and  against  suicide  as  a  means, 
which  in  his  mind  would  defeat  that  moralistic  end   (fVelt 
als  Wille  u.  Vors.  §  69). 

While  the  practical  Semitic  tendency  in  Christianity 
forbids  the  treatment  of  the  problem  upon  such  a  cosmic 
basis,  it  became  possible  for  that  religion  to  separate  man 
from  his  world   and   reduce  his  life  to  an   inner  conflict. 


256  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

Love  and  hate  undergo  peculiar  transformations  whereby 
the  individual  is  exhorted  to  abandon  the  world  in  which 
he  lives  and  to  love  others  rather  than  himself.  The 
natural  desire  to  be  one's  self  in  one's  world  is  the  ambi- 
tion most  remote  from  him  who  accepts  the  principles  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  This  practical  attitude  toward  the 
world  is  in  harmony  with  the  speculative  principles  of  belief 
and  doubt.  Like  the  Buddhist,  the  Christian  must  doubt 
in  order  to  believe;  that  is,  he  turns  away  from  the  per- 
ceptible in  order  to  accept  the  imperceptible  in  the  form  of 
spiritual  life.  And  thus  the  general  truth  of  the  inner 
life  is  established  upon  the  ruins  of  sense  and  selfhood. 

Our  modern  situation  is  profoundly  affected  by  these 
religious  compunctions,  and  we  have  become  so  impressed 
with  the  value  of  renunciation  that  we  are  ready  to  cast 
out  of  life,  not  only  sense,  but  reason  itself.  This  was 
attempted  by  Kant  in  his  peculiar  passion  for  morality. 
Kant's  ethics  was  erected  upon  the  ruins  of  metaphysics, 
a  process  which  made  the  will  seem  wiser  than  the  intel- 
lect. Morality  was  called  upon  to  play  a  double  part,  for 
it  was  first  a  doctrine  of  Sollen  and  then  a  theory  of  Sein, 
according  to  which  the  world  of  reality  was  built  upon 
virtue.  In  this  moral  blindness,  Kant  abandoned  culture 
for  conduct  whereby  he  showed  himself  strong  and  critical 
in  his  treatment  of  truth  and  beauty,  but  weak  and  fearful 
in  his  attitude  toward  ethics  and  right.  His  was  a  half- 
work,  marked  everywhere  by  temperament  and  a  Semitic 
regard  for  conduct  according  to  rule.  Kant  knew  logic 
and  succeeded  in  viewing  it  critically,  but  he  did  not  know 
life,  and  his  attempt  to  subsume  humanity  under  the  cate- 
gorical imperative  was  disastrous.  The  way  in  which  he 
pitted  the  practical  against  the  speculative  and  urged  the 
will  to  throttle  the  intellect  under  the  academic  banner  of 
"primacy  of  practical  reason"  is  too  well  known  to  need 
comment,  too  melancholy  to  desire  emphasis,  and  we  can 
only  regret  that  our  great  modern  did  not  have  the  courage 
to  view  conscience  as  he  viewed  causality.  For  why  should 
the  causal  category  be  limited  to  experience  while  the 
categorical  imperative  was  granted  the  freedom  of  the 
ideal,  with  the  efiect  of  promoting  a  weak  phenomenalism 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  257 

in  metaphysics  and  a  strong  but  cramped  rationalism  in 
morality?  For  all  that  can  be  said  against  a  metaphysical 
thing-in-itself  may  just  as  well  be  urged  against  a  moralistic 
duty-in-itself,  and  he  who,  like  Kant,  admits  that  the  in- 
tellect ends  in  a  Logik  des  Scheins  can  only  conclude  that 
the  will  is  threatened  with  an  Ethik  des  Scheins.  As  for 
Kant,  he  did  not  see  that  to  divest  will  of  reason  and  re- 
invest it  with  duty  was  to  reduce  his  ethics  to  absurdity 
through  the  removal  of  it  from  human  life  and  its  ethical 
demands;  and  when  he  says,  "Oh,  duty!  there  is  nothing 
charming  about  thee."  (Crit.  Prac.  Reason,  P.  215)  he 
might  also  have  said  "and  nothing  true,  either."  No  longer 
does  he  believe  in  life. 

Schopenhauer  made  the  will  renounce  sense  where  Kant 
had  turned  it  against  reason,  and  thereby  restored  rigorism 
to  its  proper  place  in  human  life.  At  the  same  time,  his 
pessimistic  view  of  nature  and  man  fitted  him  for  the  posi- 
tion of  ascetic  priest,  while  his  systematic  view  of  aesthetics 
and  ethics  suffer  him  to  arrange  eudaemonism  and  rigorism 
as  stages  in  the  achievement  of  a  life-ideal.  Accepting 
Kant's  general  view  of  beauty,  Schopenhauer  elaborates  and 
intensifies  it  by  making  aesthetics  serve  the  interest  of  man 
in  quieting  the  will-to-llve.  He  who  is  raised  to  the  height 
of  artistic  conetmplation  sees  the  world  as  one  and  feels 
himself  a  will-less  subject  cleansed  temporarily  of  desire 
and  its  stain.  But  not  all  are  able  to  produce  the  beautiful, 
and  at  best  the  lofty  moment  of  pure  contemplation  Is 
transitory,  so  that  resort  to  sterner  means  must  be  had 
and  the  ideal  of  contemplation  gives  way  before  that  of 
renunciation  (cf.  fVelt  als  Wille  u.  Vorstellung,  S  60). 
Not  all  of  us  can  be  artists,  but  we  can  all  be  moralists,  and 
where  art  quiets  and  cleanses  the  wlll-to-live,  the  ethics  of 
rigorism  destroys  it  altogether  by  leading  man  to  denial 
and  negation.  Schopenhauer's  argument  in  favor  of  renun- 
ciation commands  the  assent  of  Tolstoi  and  the  dissent 
of  Nietzsche  in  a  strange  mingling  of  optimism  and  pessi- 
mism. Both  have  at  heart  the  interests  of  nihilism,  and 
while  their  theories  of  life  from  the  standpoint  of  practical 
realization  are  opposed,  they  uphold  one  and  the  same  form 
of  theoretical  negation.     Only  a  decadent  age  could  yield 


258  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

such  an  example  of  blood-fusion  between  opposed  forms  of 
life,  and  thus  our  own  age  involves  itself  in  the  paradox  of 
ajfirmonego  as  it  attempts  to  decide  between  the  respective 
claims  of  nature  and  spirit. 


3- THE  IDEALIZATION  OF  PAIN 

Certain  features  of  the  present  show  how  our  opera  and 
drama   are   wrestling  with   such   problems.     Nowhere   may 
this  be  observed  more  clearly  than  in  the  case  of  Wagner. 
His  resort  to  renunciation  is  shown  in  the  two  parts  of  the 
Niebelungen  Ring  which  develop  the  characters  of  the  law- 
defying,     optimistic     Siegfried,     and     the     ever-weakening, 
pessimistic    Wotan.      Even    though    the    tetralogy    contains 
this    double    motive,    both    the    Siegfried-drama    and    the 
Wotan-drama  are  involved  in  renunciation.     And  the  ideal 
of  an  all-conquering,  all-pervading  love  which  causes  Sieg- 
fried  and    Brunnhilde   to   repudiate   law,    finally   consumes 
them  in   a  fire  of  expiation.     The   farewell   to  the  world, 
uttered  by  Brunnhilde  is  only  the  song  before  the  twilight 
of  the  gods  and  heroes.     Renunciation  has  taken  hold  upon 
them,  so  that  both  Siegfried  and  Wotan  are  reduced  to  the 
same  level.     This  is  the  common  end  of  the  characters  who 
earlier  in   the  drama  stood   for  the  contraries  of  optimism 
and  pessimism,  of  hope  and   fear.     Light  is  shed  upon  the 
moral  problem  of  the  Ring  when  it  is  observed  that  Wagner, 
having  surveyed  the  whole  ethical  field,  was  content  to^rest 
in    resignation.      In    one    of    his    letters    to    Roeckel,    dated 
August  23,   1856,  he  expressed  his  belief  in  renunciation  a^ 
the   highest  ethical   category,   saying,   ''Kannst  du   Dir  eine 
moralische     Handlung     anders     vorstellen     ah     unter    dem 
Begriffe   der   Entsagungf*     Even    his   victorious   art   could 
not  save  him  from  this  defeat  whose  terms  of  capitulation 
are  expressed  in  the  music  and  poetry  of  Parsival.     Such  is 
the  Wagnerian  conception  of  life. 

As  the  Ring  indicates  the  decline  of  German  naturism 
and  the  twilight  of  the  fair  gods  and  heroes  before  the 
night  of  Christian  renunciation,  so  Ibsen's  "Emperor  and 
Galilean"  repeats  the  story  of  the  downfall  witnessed  in 
Grecian    naturism    when    the    Emperor    gave    way    to    the 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  259 

Galilean  and  the  worship  of  Apollo  was  forgotten  in  the 

l\T  °l  It'^^'i-    ^^'  '?"/'  '■'  ^"°^''"  t""™Ph  of  rigorism! 
although  the  Emperor  Julian  attempts  to  urge  the  Ige  on 

toward  a  third  empire,  wherein  the  empire  of  the  spirit, 
having  swallowed  up  the  empire  of  sense,  itself  succumb^ 
to  the  realm  of  the  Emperor-God,  who  comes  into  being 
as  the  man  who  wills  himself"  (Act  iii.  Sc.  iv).  But 
just  as  the  Emperor  Julian  cries  out,  "The  third  empire  is 
at  hand  (Act  v.  Sc.  ii),  he  is  pierced  by  the  "Roman's 
spear  from  Go  gotha,"  and  dies  exclaiming,  "Thou  hL 
conquered,  Galilean"  (lb.  Sc.  ni).  The  victory  of  tl^e 
Galilean  over  both  northern  and  southern  gods  is  the  vic- 
tory of  the  negative  over  the  positive,  of  pain  over  pleasure, 

^LTu  r";  """"^l     ^"  ^•'"""'^  "Rosmersholm",  where,  in 
tne  tuu  freedom  of  an  emancipated  woman,  Rebecca  West 
asserts  her  independence  and  goes  to  work  at  a  social  re- 
.phT    ^'V"^^"  '15^'tates  in  its  desire  to  accomplish  valued 
ends,  the  heroine  finally  falls  a  victim  of  what  she  calls  the 
Rosmersholm  view  of  life."     Thus  her  outlook  is  clouded 
and  her  strength  exhausted  in  the  presence  of  the  renuncia- 
tory ideal,  and  at  last  she  herself  succumbs  to  the  "Rosmer 
view   of    duty    and    expiration"    (Act    iv).     Wagner    and 
Ibsen  do  not  present  a  unitary  argument  in  favor  of  renun- 
ciation, for  with  Wagner  the  ravens  of  renunciation  do  not 
appear  in  the  sky  until  the  hero  has  made  a  full  test  of  the 
contrary    ideal    of    self-realization.     The    same    is   true    of 
Ibsen,  who  presents  the  positive  and  negative  ideals  side  by 
side,  or  effects  a  transmutation   from  one  to  the  other,  as 
when  the  egoistic  Peer  Gynt,  looking  into  the  question  of 

(Act*^   si'Tx)  °"^''  '""  '"'  *°  ''^^  °"^''  *^"" 

The    whole    range    of    Russian    literature   with    its    in- 
dwelling     black-earth    force",    as   Turgenieflf   styles   it,    as 
also  with  <ts  frigid  nihilism  and  snow-bound  ideals,  affords 
a  promising  field  for  negativistic  views  of  human  welfare 
Russian   supermen   who  seek   to   live   their  own   individual 

"On  ''Z^'^'^"    L^V^^  ^"^,  ^''  '^^y  ^'^^fhe.     Thus  in 
Un    the    Eve  ,    Shubin    complains    of    the    Russian    land 
Ihere  is  no  one,  as  yet,  among  us;  there  are  no  men,  look 

where  you  will.     All  are  either  small   fry,   or  squabblers 


26o  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

petty  Hamlets,  cannibals,  either  underground  gloom  and 
thicket,  or  bullies,  empty  triflers,  and  drum  sticks  lo 

which  Ivan  Ivanovltch  replies,  "They  will  come  ?  O  thou 
soil!  thou  black-earth  force!  thou  hast  said:  They  will 
come"  (xxx).  Tolstoi  exalts  a  more  spiritual  ideal  ot 
resignation  wherein  man  acquires  his  renunciation  as  his 
fundamental  desire,  at  the  same  time  he  infuses  his  ideal 
with  the  sentiments  of  compassion  and  non-resentment. 
Gorky's  intuition  of  life  unites  harshness  with  tenderness,  but 
its  most  emphatic  teaching  is  that  humanity  is  adapted  to  and 
prepared  for  suffering.  Thus  in  "The  Night  Refuge,  Luka, 
the  pilgrim  says,  "Every  one  endures  life  in  his  own  way 

(Act  ii).  ,    ,  .  •   J     J  .k 

The  attack  upon  his  ideal  of  depression,  as  indeed  the 
repudiation  of  all  resignation,  centers  in  Nietzsche,  although 
he  was  not  without  predecessors,  such  as  Stendhal  and  btir- 
ner,  nor  without  followers.  Nietzsche's  bitter  antagonism 
breaks  out  upon  every  side  of  his  own  weakened  nature,  but 
seems  to  find  its  foci  in  the  "will-to-power"  and  the  super- 
man." With  a  nature  personally  impaired,  as  was 
Wagner's,  he,  however,  refuses  to  submit  to  the  renuncia- 
tory ideal,  and  carries  on  his  warfare  until  darkness  over- 
takes him.  His  maxim  is  the  antlpode  of  Pascal  s  le  mot 
est  hdissable,  to  which  by  contrast  he  gives  special^  prom- 
inence, while  he  does  not  fail  to  renounce  Geulincx  s  ideal 
of  self-despectlon— ^e^/)^f/io  sui.  The  Third  Essay  in  the 
Genealogy  of  Morals  (tr.  Hausemann),  rejects  all  forms 
of  asceticism  and  incites  an  attack  upon  all  moral  cruelties, 
as  Nietzsche  considers  them.  The  result  consists  in  show- 
ing how  real  is  rigorism,  and  with  what  difficulty  it  is  to 
be  replaced  by  a  happier  ideal. 

The  current  repudiation  of  this  Ideal  involves  an  at- 
tack upon  the  retroactive  methods  peculiar  to  the  indivi- 
dual's reaction  upon  himself  and  his  world.  Man's  attack 
upon  himself  is  carried  on  in  the  name  of  repentance  where- 
in he  repudiates  himself  through  metanoia  and  In  his  pcnanc? 
refuses  to  sympathize  with  his  former  self.  Sudermann 
carries  on  an  attack  upon  this  Ideal  when  In  Es  War,  Leo 
the  hero,  having  broken  two  commandments  of  the  Deca- 
logue, struggles  against  repentence  and   constantly   fortifies 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  261 

himself  by  saying,  ''Nichts  bereue;  immer  besser  machen" 
The  tendency  of  Sudermann's  view  of  humanity  is  to  make 
rigorism  look  more  or  less  illusory  and  as  an  act  unneces- 
sary. In  characteristic  ethics,  where  remorse  of  conscience, 
non-resentment  of  evil,  and  denial  of  self  have  a  firm  place, 
no  one  need  inquire  concerning  the  appropriateness  of 
repentance  wherein  spiritual  life  strives  to  gain  complete 
sway  over  the  individual's  life  by  unmaking  his  past  for 
him.  For  rigorism,  repentance  is  healthful,  and  when  the 
claims  of  duty  are  to  be  met,  some  such  revolution  must 
take  place  in  the  life  of  man.  But  all  this  depends  upon 
what  we  are  expected  to  be  and  to  do,  and  the  validity  of 
repentance  depends  upon  the  value  of  rigorism.  The  path 
which  the  twentieth  century  is  opening  does  not  seem  to 
lead  to  Damascus. 

The  other  phase  of  renunciation  is  doubt,  from  which 
rigorism  can  provide  no  means  of  escape.     All  doubt  is  due 
to  man's  odd  position  in  the  world  where  he  can  ally  him- 
self with  neither  nature  nor  reason,  but  can  only  lose  himself  ' 
in  a  perplexity  which   follows  when   he  sees  how   far   re- 
moved  from  experience  are   the  ideals  of  his  spirit.     Our 
19th  century  agnosticism  was  probably  inspired  by  the  hope 
of   finding   peace   in    the    renunciation   of   all    fundamental 
knowledge;  for  what  can  be  more  despairing  than  a  sense 
of  spiritual  life  which  is  beyond  our  powers  of  comprehen- 
sion ?     A  paganism  which  was  beyond  belief  and  doubt  can 
give   more   happiness   than   Christendom,   with    its   internal 
conflicts,  can  afford ;  but  can  the  older  view  of  life  advance 
man  toward  his  human  perfection?     And  are  we  not  justi- 
fied  in   neglecting  the   early   attempts   at   disciplining  man 
which    Hellenism   made,   when   we   see  how   much   greater 
vvas  the  humanity  of  Him  who  was  touched  with  the  an- 
cient anguish  of  the  earth.     Better  the  inner  diremptlon  of 
doubt  than  a  misleading  naivete,  we  say,  and  yet  we  have 
the  presentiment  that  man's  spiritual  unity  should  not  be 
torn  asunder  by  the  conflicting  claims  of  sense  and  spirit, 
of   experience    and    human    hope.     Neither    repentance    nor 
doubt  is  presented  in  any  close  connection  with  the  august 
plan  of  life  that  humanity  has  arranged  for  man,  and  we 
must  wait  until  a  third  and  more  unified  view  of  life  is 


262  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

entertained  before  we  can  decide  concerning  the  respective 
claims  of  "moderation"  and  "renunciation."  The  decadent 
drama  shows  that  our  age  is  not  wanting  in  responsiveness 
to  sentiment,  as  it  moulds  its  ideal  according  to  the  lines 
of  a  woman's  forehead,  while  it  views  the  world  through 
her  hair.  We  must  regret,  however,  that  poetry  presents 
the  ideal  of  renunciation  in  suggestive  and  unhappy  con- 
nection with  sensuality,  as  in  the  instance  of  "John  the 
Baptist"  and  "Salome" ;  wherein  rigorism  and  animalism  arc 
so  strangely  blended.  The  desire  to  deny  self  and  renounce 
life  is  ineradicable,  and  while  few  become  Buddhist  Bhik- 
shus  or  Christian  monks,  all  men  are  capable  of  negation. 
In  his  sensuous  capacity  man  is  by  no  means  sure  of  him- 
self, so  that  his  anxiety  for  spiritual  safety  leads  him  to 
turn  away  from  the  world  of  sense;  and  thus  he  shows 
that  the  love  and  hatred  of  pleasure  coexist  in  the  same 
human  breast  according  to  a  law  not  unknown  in  the 
tragedy  of  the  eudaemonistic  Greeks — the  law  of  Zeus 
that  "pain  is  gain." 


-THE  PASSION  FOR  MORALITY 


Like  pleasure,  virtue  represents  one  of  our  human  in- 
terests, being  connected  with  our  destiny.  This,  coupled 
with  the  fact  that  desire  may  direct  our  will  toward  either 
pleasure  or  pain,  makes  possible  a  veritable  passion  for 
morality  extending  all  the  way  from  the  love  of  virtue  in 
its  beauty  to  fanaticism  and  paranoia.  Our  modern  moral- 
ists are  strangely  concerned  for  virtue  as  though  in  its  sup- 
posed weakness  it  could  not  take  care  of  itself.  The  utili- 
tarian seeks  to  account  for  it  by  associating  it  with  pleasure 
while  the  intuitionist  feels  the  unhappy  contrast  between 
rectitude  and  advantage.  But  humanity  rises  above  such 
explanations  and  schemes,  for  it  is  possessed  of  a  will  which 
is  ready  to  set  up  either  a  positive  goal  in  pleasure  or  a 
negative  one  in  pain.  When,  therefore,  the  rigorist  leaves 
the  will  to  its  own  volitions  he  need  not  worry  lest  introspec- 
tion disclose  a  sub-conscious  trend  of  hedonism  making  the 
will  respond  to  pleasure  alone,  because  our  activities  run 
ahead  of  our  judgments  and   the  will   stands  in   need  of 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  263 

restraint  rather  than  hedonic  reinforcement.  The  modern 
is  commg  into  being  as  the  "man  who  wills  himself,"  so 
that  a  sane  philosophy  of  voluntarism  which  shall  place  the 
will  where  it  belongs  is  one  of  our  greatest  needs  in  an  age 
of  blind  progress  and  rash  pragmatism. 

Man  is  not  too  moral,  but  his  morality  is  spurious;  he 
IS  not  too  willful,  but  is  possessed  of  an  inferior  quality  of 
volition;   hence   the   forces  of   reason   should   seek  to  turn 
freedom  from  its  empirical  to  an  intelligible  form,  accord- 
ing to  which  man  may  act  as  a  human  character  who  is 
conscious  of  his  position  in  the  world  and  his  problem  in 
life.     Our  current  philosophical  systems  reveal  their  blind- 
ness when  in  an  age  of  activism  they  keep  urging  industrial 
and  social  progress  which  goes  on  at  an  extraordinary  rate 
at  the  expense  of  the  inner  life.     The  contrary  ideal,  that 
of  passivism  is  needed  to  check  the  morality  of  passion  by 
the  morality  of  sentiment,  whose  essence  is  found  in  thought 
as  well  as  deed.     Whether  contemplation   be  the   ultimate 
ideal  or  not,  some  degree  of  intellectual  restraint  is  needed 
to-day  to  bring  man  to  himself  as  human.     Why  strive  to 
attain  to  an  ideal  when  that  ideal  is  not  defined  in  thought? 
We   need   not   indulge   in   the   paradox   that   man   is   over- 
moralized,  but  we  may  assert  without  fear  of  error  that  our 
morality  has  advanced  at  the  expense  of  our  intelligence,  in 
accordance  with  the  mistaken  and  anti-Socratic  notion  that 
all  men  know  what  is  right  and  need  only  moral  impulsion 
to  make  them  perform  it.     But  this  view  makes  conscience 
do  more  than  the  moral  sense  of  humanity  is  supposed  to 
perform.     Certainly  one  may  be  too  scrupulous  and  lose  his 
moral   resolution;   he  may   become  sanctimonious  and   thus 
sufier  his  good  to  be  evil  spoken  of,  and  in  addition  to  mor- 
bid conscience  and  fanatical  faith,  one  may  be  moralized  to 
the   extreme   of   becoming   demoralized.     At   any   rate,   the 
instinct  is  not  so  weak  that  it  needs  nursing  from  ethical 
theory,  for  it  may  become  so  strong  in  its  Stoicism,  so  bitter 
in  its  Cynicism  that  it  must  be  fostered  by  art.     Both  con- 
science  and    the   categorical    imperative   will    take   care   of 
themselves,  and  if  the  "good  men"  of  America  to-day  are 
able  to  use  Puritan  morality  in  the  building  up  of  fortunes 
magnificent   beyond    our   power   to   conceive,   we   stand   in 


264  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

need   of   a   new  system   of   moral   values   with   less   moral 
earnestness  about  them. 

The  possibility  of  a  purely  moral  attitude  is  never  called 
into  question  by  those  who  know  the  utmost  capabilities  of 
human  nature.  Man  may  stand  in  perfect  moral  isolation, 
either  silencing  his  other  faculties  for  the  time  or  eradicat- 
ing them  altogether;  in  this  striking  position  he  is  ready  to 
will  his  own  extinction.  Something  in  the  will  leads  our 
humanity  to  seek  pain  with  all  the  zest  of  pleasure's  pur- 
suit, and  commandments  to  renounce  and  deny,  to  hate  and 
slay  the  self  have  always  flourished  in  the  human  heart. 
For  this  reason,  moralists  are  able  to  deduce  a  categorical 
imperative  or  a  denial  of  the  will-to-live,  and  man,  whose 
instinct  for  spiritual  death  is  as  strong  as  his  love  of  sensuous 
life,  is  more  than  ready  to  obey.  We  need  not  raise  the 
foolish  question  of  numbers  and  thus  inquire  whether  those 
who  love  life  or  those  who  hate  life  are  in  the  majority; 
the  fact  remains  that  man  can  repudiate  himself,  for  which 
purpose  he  has  at  his  command  a  will  as  strong  as  death. 
This  is  the  inner  truth  of  Yoga  philosophy  which  makes 
use  of  that  reserve  of  volition  which  is  at  the  command  of 
him  who  through  discipline  and  denial  will  set  himself 
aside.  Once  liberated  within  the  soul,  the  life-destroying 
instinct  can  scarcely  be  checked  in  its  effort  to  annihilate  all 
interests,  for  it  carries  man  as  far  toward  negation  as  natural 
passion  urges  him  toward  assertion  of  his  animal  nature.  The 
student  of  morals  may  observe  this  in  his  own  experience,  or 
he  may  examine  it  as  it  is  reflected  in  some  sincere  study  of 
humanity,  like  Balzac's  Human  Comedy.  There,  among 
studies  of  other  forms  of  obsession  in  connection  with  avarice, 
lust,  or  revenge,  the  reader  finds  striking  examples  of  moral- 
istic mania  exhibited  by  such  characters  as  Pere  Goriot, 
Eugenie  Grandet,  Benassis  the  Country  Doctor,  Marguerite 

Claes. 

Our  passions  are  at  war  with  our  sentiments  as  well  as 
our  senses,  and  the  advance  of  ethics  is  often  the  retreat  of 
aesthetics.  Through  the  restraining  power  of  conscience 
individuals  are  often  hindered  from  performing  beautiful 
deeds,  and  in  the  fear  lest  one  cannot  entertain  pleasure 
without   passion   we   cast   out   joy   and    beauty   altogether. 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  265 

Hence  arises  the  contrast  between  eudaemonism  and  rigorism, 
where  ethical  sentiment  is  in  conflict  with  moral   passion. 
Systems  that  counsel  man  to  redeem  himself  by  denial  are 
most  plausible  when  they  attack  nature,  least  so  when  they 
proceed    to    invalidate    culture.     But    the    psychologic    fact 
remains  that  man  has  power  to  lay  down  his  life,  for  the 
death-instinct  is  not  much  weaker  than  the  life-instinct  and 
the  will  that  affirms  can  also  deny.     For  the  most  part,  the 
nihilism  of  renunciation  directs  its  weapons  against  natural 
instinct    and    seeks    to    supplant    animality    by    spirituality. 
Such  is  the  usual  course  of  religion  with  its  inimical  atti- 
tude toward  the  "flesh"  and  the  "world",  and  the  extreme 
methods  sometimes  recommended  by  Buddhism  and  Christ- 
ianity arc  intelligible  in  the  light  of  the  vicious  sensuality 
which   makes   the   instinctive   life   of   man   more   degrading 
even  than  animalism.       Man  was  not  destined  to  ascend 
from  the  domain  of  flora  to  spiritual  life  without  passing 
through  the  stage  of  faunal  existence,  and  our  most  pro- 
found systems  of  life  make  careful  provision  for  this  phase 
of   man's   being.     Where    the   renunciatory    ideal   turns   its 
attention   to  art  and  culture,   and   thus  seeks   to  set  aside 
symbolic  forms  of  naturalism,  as  also  the  gentle  approxima- 
tions    to     spirituality     which     are     commonly     found     in 
aesthetes,  it  involves  the  plan  of  life  in  a  most  serious  con- 
flict and  sets  ideal  at  variance  with  ideal.     One  cannot  say 
"Virtue   have   I   loved   and   beauty  have   I   hated,"   unless 
these  terms   indicate  only  a  difference  of   degree   in   affec- 
tion.    Vice  we  are  willing  to  forego,  for  we  find  nothing 
of  value  in  these  unnatural   forms  of  human  passion;  but 
renunciation   must   be  so  construed   and  so  limited   that   it 
may  make  room  for  culture  and  aesthetic  enjoyment.     At 
this  juncture  we  are  confronted  by  the  conflict  between  cul- 
ture and  conduct,  but  we  cannot  survey  these  ideals  clearly 
until  we  have  traced  man's  source  in  the  world  toward  a 
final,  or  humanistic,  view  of  life. 


5— THE    HATRED    OF    LIFE 

Our   previous   examination   of   self-love    as   a   practical 
notion  was  intended  to  show  how  difficult  it  is  for  the  in- 


a66  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

dividual  to  realize  or  even  to  find  himself  in  the  pursuit  of 
personal  pleasure.  The  form  of  selfhood  whch  is  involved 
in  such  a  scheme  is  so  weak  and  unworthy  that  it  cannot 
rule  consciousness  or  guide  man  to  any  tenable  position  irk 
the  world  of  humanity.  Hence  we  do  not  call  egoism  bad, 
but  look  upon  it  as  empty.  Since  human  selfhood  is  in  no 
wise  bound  up  with  self-love,  it  becomes  possible  to  culti- 
vate the  ego  by  means  of  a  practice  totally  different,  or  that 
of  self-hatred:  and  in  the  larger  world  of  individuals  we 
meet  one  who  loves  his  life,  6  <f>iXo)v  r^v  ^xv^  avrov,  and 
another  who  hates  it,  6  /juctHv  t^v  ilrvxrjv  avrov.  Indeed,  in 
the  blind  clinging  to  life  man  reveals  an  attitude 
which  mingles  self-love  and  self-hatred,  for  in  both  pleasure 
and  pain  he  longs  to  find  the  self  which  enjoys  and  suffers. 
The  very  impulse  which  leads  man  to  seek  happiness  may 
turn  against  him  and  persuade  him  to  trust  misery,  and  a 
Hellenic  love  of  life  may  change  to  a  Hebraic  fear  of  exist- 
ence. It  is  a  hasty  psychology  that  turns  the  stream  of 
consciousness  in  the  direction  of  pleasure  alone,  and  an 
equally  heedless  form  of  ethics  which  assumes  that  man 
is  naturally  inclined   toward  happiness. 

Pessimism  is  a  positive  condition  of  things  based  upon 
the  reality  of  pain,  and  he  who  inclines  toward  self-hatred 
and  has  no  real  aversion  to  sorrow  assumes  an  attitude  of 
confidence  in  misery  as  though  it  were  better  calculated  to 
teach  him  reality.  The  appreciation  of  this  sinister  tend- 
ing should  prevent  the  hedonist  from  dogmatizing  about 
pleasure  and  happiness,  just  as  it  ought  to  warn  the  rigorist 
against  inculcating  the  life-destroying  ideals  of  law  and 
sacrifice.  Man's  capacity  for  pain  has  not  received  its  due 
ethical  estimate,  and  how  blind  has  been  the  method  of 
rigorism  in  its  desire  to  have  man  suffer!  While  this  may 
sound  ironical,  can  it  be  denied  that  where  one  ethical 
school  has  upheld  a  morality  of  pleasure  the  other  has 
defended  a  morality  of  pain?  Conscience  lives  in  remorse, 
rectitude  ignores  human  desire,  duty  tends  to  destroy  life 
itself.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  rigorism  distrusts  hap- 
piness and  believes  that  the  ideal  can  be  found  in  the  prac- 
tice of  pain,  and  the  love  of  virtue  has  not  failed  to  instill 
the  hatred  of  pleasure.     It  may  seem  paradoxical  to  speak 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  267 

of  man  as  one  who  makes  neither  pleasure  nor  pain  his 
object,  but  so  detached  from  experience  is  the  inner  sense 
of  human  existence  that,  instead  of  having  pleasure  and 
pam  as  his  masters,  man  keeps  them  as  the  servants  of  his 
humanity.  He  weighs  and  values  them  and  chooses 
eudaemonism  or  rigorism  according  to  the  optimism  or 
pessimism  of  his  view. 

In  view  of  the  pessimistic  atmosphere  that  envelops  life, 
It  IS  unwise  to  counsel  man  to  expect  happiness  as  such; 
and  It  IS  none  the  less  unnecessary  to  urge  him  to  renuncia- 
tion.    Man,  when  under  the  influence  of  spirit,  has  a  cer- 
tain appetite  for  pain,  and  is  possessed  with  the  notion  that 
sorrow  has  the  power  of  ennobling;  at  the  same  time  he 
feels  that  pain  finds  him  in  a  position  where  he  has  nothing 
to  lose  and  everything  to  gain.     One  may  condemn  such  a 
method  of  conduct  for  its  cowardice,  and  may  look  upon  the 
ascetic  as  one  who  gives  up  the  problem  of  life  altogether 
simply  because  he  cannot  solve  it.     Here  the  eudaemonist 
may  make  claim  to  some  superiority  when,  like  the  ancient 
Aristippus,  he  contends  that  the  man  who  enters  into  pleasure 
and   demonstrates   his  lordship  over   it   is  wiser   and   more 
ethical  than  the  Cynic  who  will  not  trust  himself  to  enjoy 
life.     Nevertheless  the  issues  of  life  are  so  great  that  serious 
systems  of  ethics  and  reh'gion  are  unwilling  to  trifle  with 
the  minor  elements  of  existence,  but  sink  at  once  into  the 
very  midst  of  human  life  where  they  seek  some  safe  path 
of   moral   realization  or   religious   redemption.     Pain  seems 
to  be  more  trustworthy  because  it  has  a  certain  touch  of 
reality  about  it,  while  happiness  is  always  superficial. 

More  material  for  a  philosophy  of  renunciation  is  forth- 
coming in  the  melancholy  fact  of  death.  Why  emphasize 
the  joy  of  living,  or  center  one's  activity  in  culture  when  the 
passage  of  a  few  decades  will  bring  the  lordly  man  down  to 
the  dust  again?  Renunciation  leads  man  to  rise  above 
mere  existence  and  survey  his  human  career  as  a  combina- 
tion of  life  and  death,  whereby  the  recipient  of  this  somber 
view  instills  a  certain  amount  of  death  into  his  very  life. 
Early  Christiantity  was  so  possessed  of  the  spirit  of  renun- 
ciation that  it  well-nigh  interchanged  these  ideas  and  found 
life  in  death  and  death  in  life.     Just  as  the  ideal  of  modera- 


268  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

tlon  is  due  to  a  perception  of  harmony  between  the  sensuous 
and  spiritual  in  us,  whereby  aesthetic  judgment  and  artistic 
creation  become  possible,  so  renunciation  arises  in  a  religious 
mood  of  consciousness  wherein  the  individual  feels  con- 
strained to  remove  every  possible  trace  of  sense  for  fear  of 
the  stain  which  it  may  occasion.  How  vain  it  seems  to 
speak  of  eudaemonia  when  the  flesh  which  feels  the  pleasure 
will  soon  seek  corruption?  And  why  should  a  theory  of 
life  be  sugered  to  delude  mortals  into  the  expectation  of 
happiness  when  humanity  is  ever  subject  to  the  destiny  of 
death?  Renunciation  anticipates  death  and  practices  death 
by  leading  man  to  deny  himself  and  negate  the  will-to-livc; 
by  so  doing  it  brings  man  to  a  consciousness  of  his  human 
reality  and  in  the  discipline  of  death  teaches  him  how  to 
live.  Eudaemonism  strives  after  Euthanasia,  and  hence  it 
was  that  Montaigne  wished  that  death  might  find  him 
busy  in  the  garden.  But,  from  the  standpoint  of  death,  re- 
nunciation seems  to  indicate  a  more  consistent  path,  for  it 
makes  the  coming  of  death  a  matter  of  no  surprise.  The 
death  of  a  eudaemonist  is  not  the  sublime  spectacle  of  the 
death  suffered  by  one  who  has  renounced  life  already,  and 
it  is  no  matter  of  chance  that  religion  has  embraced  the 
renunciatory  ideal.  Human  striving  for  spiritual  life  as 
instilled  by  religious  belief  cannot  compromise  with  sense 
in  the  world  of  immediacy,  but  insists  upon  sheer  spirit 
even  where  the  practical  demands  of  life  seem  to  necessitate 
something  more  immediate  and  fruitful. 

In  spite  of  its  contrast  to  eudaemonism,  rigorism  is  no 
less  antipathetic  to  the  culture  of  the  human  spirit.  This 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  demand  for  virtue  tends  to  forbid 
self-realization,  for  be  who  feels  that  he  must  renounce  his 
life  fears  to  realize  it  in  either  sense  or  intellect.  Rigorism 
stands  for  restraint,  and  in  the  subordination  of  man  to 
morality  there  is  no  opportunity  for  the  individual  to  attain 
to  selfhood;  the  will  also  is  taught  to  exercise  its  functions 
in  a  negative  fashion  as  though  man  should  retreat  from 
nature  instead  of  overcoming  her  by  knowledge  and  taste, 
by  virtue  and  worship.  Knowledge  is  subordinated  to  the 
ethical  will,  art  is  employed  as  a  moral  discipline,  while 
religion   has   no   other    ofHce    than    furthering   the    demands 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  269 

of  virtue.  Altogether,  the  life  of  culture  is  set  aside  for 
the  sake  of  obligation,  and  with  the  best  of  intentions  the 
aims  of  humanity  are  constantly  thwarted.  Like  eudaemo- 
nism, rigorism  represents  a  living  element  in  human  nature, 
a  trait  reappearing  in  the  race  from  time  to  time  in  greater 
or  less  degree.  When  it  is  subordinated  to  the  constant 
striving  of  humanity  toward  its  own  goal,  and  is  further 
viewed  as  a  means  to  an  end,  it  may  find  an  acceptable  place 
in  a  just  view  of  human  life.  Hence,  when  finally  we  come 
to  the  major  morality  of  Humanism,  we  shall  find  it  im- 
possible to  postulate  a  triumph  of  humanity  over  its  ideals 
both  of  moderation  and  renunciation ;  and  in  this  condition 
of  victorious  humanity  selfhood  will  find  its  proper  place. 


VII 

THE  EFFECT  OF  CHARACTERISTIC  ETHICS— 

THE  DIGNITY  OF  MAN 

As  naturism  with  all  the  ramification  of  its  paths  finally 
led  to  a  sense  of  value  which  man  receives  from  the  world, 
so  characteristic  ethics  evinces  the  dignity  of  man  in  his 
capacity  of  a  moral  character  distinct  from  nature.  It  does 
not  follow  from  this  that  the  categories  of  value  and  dignity 
are  fully  elaborated  by  this  view  of  life  according  to  nature 
and  reason  respectively,  but  the  general  sense  of  life  as 
worth  while  and  worthy  seems  to  follow  from  the  arguments 
employed  by  these  traditional  schools  of  ethics.  When  man 
responds  to  conscience  and  rectitude,  when  he  is  alive  to 
freedom  and  duty,  he  shows  how  dignified  his  life  may 
become,  for  he  now  perfects  his  life  in  reason  as  his  feeling 
of  value  leads  him  to  perfect  his  life  in  sense.  And  just  as 
pleasure  and  desire,  utility  and  eudaemonia  were  in  an  in- 
clusive notion  of  value,  so  the  four  concepts  of  characteris- 
tic ethics  are  to  be  subsumed  under  the  category  of  human 
dignity.  The  restraint  of  sense  in  conscience  and  the  res- 
ponse of  reason  in  duty  are  deciduous  and  thus  lead  to  an 
ideal  beyond  their  borders  in  the  form  of  a  unified  life  in 
the  complete  order  of  humanity. 

In  adition  to  this  general  result  of  characteristic  morality 
certain  special  elements  are  noteworthy.  The  service  of 
idealistic  ethics  has  already  been  recognized  in  our  introduc- 
tion to  this  second  view  of  the  life-problem,  and  the  review 
of  characteristic  morality,  as  it  now  lies  before  us,  serves  to 
fortify  the  impression  that  this  method  was  the  only  one 
which  could  evince  the  independent  nature  of  ethics  and 
reveal  the  worth  of  common  morality.  Again  we  can  be 
thankful  that  we  were  not  left  to  the  ideal-less  principle 
of  naturism,  with  its  mere  sensitivity  to  pleasure  and  its 
desire   for   immediate   well-being,   and   praise   is  due   to   in- 

270 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  271 

tuitionism  because  it  has  revealed  the  possibility  of  an  im- 
perceptible principle  unknown  to  the  eudaemonist  in  his 
world  of  immediacy.  The  service  of  intuitionism  in  ethics 
is  very  like  that  of  rationalism  in  Baumgarten's  aesthetics, 
where  our  modern  science  of  beauty  was  emancipated  from 
tradition  and  established  in  a  systematic  way  unknown  even 
to  classicism  and  the  Renaissance.  Characteristic  ethics 
has  had  a  similar  effect  upon  moral  consciousness  and  no 
matter  how  far  we  depart  from  its  ideals  we  cannot  deny 
that  its  formal  value  is  beyond  dispute,  for  there  is  nothing 
indefinite  about  conscience  and  rectitude,  duty  and  obliga- 
tion. 

The  plan  of  characteristic  morality  revealed  a  two-fold 
form  consisting  of  ( i )  an  intellectualistic  sense  of  conscience 
and  rectitude,  and  (2)  a  volitional  principle  of  freedom  and 
duty.     As  we   received   these   doctrines  they   seemed   to  be 
unintelligible  in  themselves  and  filled  with  paradox,  until 
we  surveyed  them  as  indications  of  the  single  striving  prin- 
ciple of  humanity  in  its  progress  from  nature  to  spirit.  Then 
it  appears  that  man's  moral  sensitivity  and  spontaneity  are 
not   false,   but  genuine,   although   it   does  not   follow   from 
this  that  they  indicate  the  final  element  in  human  life.  Our 
human  striving  is  disclosed  first  of  all  in  pleasure,  and  is 
seen  again  upon  a  higher  plane  as  a  desire  for  self-approval ; 
thus  both  the  paradox  of  pleasure  and  the  problem  of  con- 
science are  involved  in  man's  striving  with  self,  where  first 
nature  and  then  reason  is  uppermost.     Among  our  impulses 
the  same  principle  of  striving  asserts  itself  and  where  it  first 
assumes  the   form   of  desire   actuated    from   within   by   the 
spontaneous  volitions  of  consciousness,   it   reappears  as   the 
detent  of  duty  which  turns  against  nature  instead  of  striv- 
ing toward  it.     A  final  glance  at  the  roots  of  characteristic 
ethics  will  show  how  conscience  and  rectitude,  freedom  and 
duty,  are  animated  by  one  central  principle  of  human  self- 
assertion. 

I — INTUITIONISM  AND  LIFE 

Presented  in  their  usual  form  as  ideals  of  characteris- 
tic morality,  the  principles  of  intuitionism  represent  but 
half-truths,   whose  completeness  is  to  be   found   in   a  view 


272  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

of  life  which  does  not  depend  upon  the  inner  diremption 
of  humanity,  but  postulates  the  unity  of  spiritual  life. 
Characteristic  ethics  has  more  interest  in  morality  than  in 
humanity,  and  it  perfects  its  science  at  the  expense  of  life. 
The  case  of  conscience  shows  how  intuitionism  is  willing 
to  destroy  the  unity  of  mind  for  the  sake  of  demonstrating 
its  point  concerning  an  inviolable  sense  of  right  and  wrong. 
All  other  phases  of  man's  consciousness  are  left  to  them- 
selves and  are  even  debased  in  order  that  the  sanctity  of 
conscience  may  appear  in  clearer  outline.  Unfortunately 
for  the  intuitional  prejudice,  conscience  is  not  permitted  to 
enjoy  such  mental  seclusion,  but  must  take  its  place  among 
the  other  semi-infallible  elements  of  consciousness.  A 
proper  and  more  defensible  view  of  conscience  abandons  the 
notion  of  ex  cathedra  utterances  made  by  this  favorite 
faculty  of  Protestantism,  and  relegates  our  human  sense  of 
approval  and  disapproval  to  the  general  course  of  mental 
judgments  concerning  truth,  beauty,  reality  and  value.  In- 
deed, the  true  authority  of  conscience  consists,  not  in  some 
unnatural  voice  coming  from  an  unw^onted  quarter,  but  in 
the  general  tenor  of  our  total  consciousness  as  this  invests 
us  with  selfhood  and  informs  us  of  our  human  worldhood 
in  the  realm  of  persons. 

The  artificial  view  of  human  rectitude  comes  in  for  its 
share  of  criticism  and  must  undergo  the  same  correction. 
An  autonomous  judgment  of  right  may  safe-guard  the  in- 
terests of  characteristic  morality,  but  it  does  so  at  the  ex- 
pense of  logical  consistency.  Our  own  examination  of 
autonomy  was  carried  on  with  the  hope  of  finding  some  ac- 
ceptable form  of  ethical  judgment,  for  we  believed  that 
humanity  cannot  content  itself  with  the  mere  felt  approval 
and  disapproval  of  an  inner  sense.  But  the  narrowness  of 
intuitionism,  forbidding  as  it  does  any  idea  of  human  in- 
terest, renders  the  ethical  judgment  fallacious,  since  it  con- 
sists in  a  circular  form  of  argument.  There  are  judgments 
of  rectitude  but  they  do  not  assume  the  analytical  form  of 
"right  is  right",  but  avoid  the  circle  and  assume  a  synthetic 
character  by  regarding  the  judgment  humanistically  as  a 
relation  between  man  and  his  ideals.  Intuitionism  docs 
not  happen  to  fall  into  this  fallacy,  but  its  very  principles 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  273 

arc  such  as  to  make  it  unavoidable,  and  the  bad  psychology 
of  an  isolated  conscience  adds  to  it  a  bad  logic  of  the  vicious 
circle.  Escape  from  this  will  be  found  in  a  living  judg- 
ment of  virtue  according  to  the  norms  of  actual  life  in 
humanity. 

On  its  volitional  side,  characteristic  ethics  was  unable 
to  defend  freedom,  just  as  it  found  no  consistent  way  to 
apply  the  ideal  of  liberty  to  life.  Intuitionism  could  not 
refrain  from  taunting  the  preliminary  system  of  naturistic 
ethics  by  contending  that  causality  was  rendered  where 
freedom  was  en  evidence.  Thus  it  set  man's  will  against 
his  understanding,  and  made  him  doubt  causality  in  order 
to  believe  freedom.  A  more  temperate  view  seeks  to 
establish  something  more  than  the  punctual  freedom  of  the 
individual,  with  its  provoking  attempts  to  pierce  the  fabric 
of  outer  causality,  for  it  finds  living  liberty  as  the  construc- 
tive principle  in  a  world  of  humanity  above  that  of  nature. 
Such  freedom  is  worth  seeking  in  theory  and  in  life,  for  it 
adapts  itself  to  the  ideal  of  morals  that  humanity  is  incul- 
cating. Intuitional  liberty  is  not  used  fairly  in  the  ethical 
system  that  seeks  to  deduce  it,  since  it  is  at  once  turned  into 
law  where  the  yoke  of  nature  becomes  the  yoke  of  nature- 
like reason.  No  greater  burden  than  that  of  freedom  has 
the  human  mind  known;  antique  fate  and  modern  deter- 
minism have  been  kind  in  comparison  with  the  law  of  liberty 
which  rigorously  demands  renunciation,  and  tries  to  crush 
all  interest  out  of  life  for  the  sake  of  a  nameless  and  pur- 
poseless law. 

Upon  such  a  basis,  intuitionism  erected  the  ideal  of  duty 
as  far  removed  from  humanity  as  its  counterpart,  freedom. 
As  a  result  there  appeared  a  paradox  insurmountable  upon 
a  rationalistic  basis.  If  duty  indicates  the  supreme  consider- 
ation in  human  life,  it  should  connect  itself  with  some 
living  interest,  but  according  to  characteristic  ethics  man 
must  perform  duty  because  it  is  duty,  and  his  satisfaction 
consists  in  knowing  that  he  has  done  the  act  for  the  sake 
of  duty.  We  need  not  deny  that  in  many  instances,  when 
the  way  from  some  immediate  act  to  the  total  purpose  of 
life  does  not  appear,  the  practical  man  of  action  must  pur- 
sue the  path  of  duty  as  such,  with  the  hope  that  it  will  trace 


274  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

its  way  through  the  labyrinth  of  life  to  its  destined  goal. 
The  sense  of  our  existence  is  not  recognized  in  our  average 
life,  but  only  in  isolated  crises,  and  hence  the  intultionist 
has  been  able  to  defend  an  imperative  principle  of  action 
because  our  human  striving  must  go  on  even  when  its  pur- 
pose is  not  clear.  Indeed,  even  to-day  the  real  sense  of 
living  is  neither  clearly  conceived  nor  faithfully  presented 
to  our  wills,  and  yet  life  must  proceed.  Yet  such  an  appeal 
is  directed  toward  our  ignorance  and  the  animality  of  our 
history,  when  a  faithful  philosophy  of  life  should  aspire 
toward  knowledge  and  the  humanity  of  man,  and  conduct 
the  moral  argument  according  to  the  analogy  of  some  goal. 
If  duty  is  so  imperative  it  must  be  because  the  issues  of  life 
are  so  urgent,  but  duty  as  developed  in  intuitionism  can 
never  tell  us  of  anything  beyond  itself,  and  its  devotee  feels 
that  he  should  participate  in  the  values  of  that  life  for 
which  he  makes  such  sacrifices. 

The  principle  of  renunciation  is  made  upon  a  similar 
basis  and  is  similarly  unable  to  assume  control  over  human 
life.  In  a  certain  sense  the  kind  of  renunciation  called  for 
by  rigorism  is  not  genuine,  since  the  rationalistic  principles 
of  the  school  leave  nothing  to  be  renounced.  Having  re- 
pudiated desire,  so  that  it  could  not  be  made  a  consideration 
in  human  existence,  regorism  cannot  justly  urge  the  renun- 
ciation of  something  that  does  not  exist.  Of  this  paradox 
our  modern  Puritanism  is  guilty  when  it  starts  out  in 
systematic  opposition  to  sense  and  taste  and  then  calls  for 
self-denial  from  a  self  without  sufficient  content  to  make 
the  denial  genuine  or  valuable.  What  can  be  renounced 
after  one  has  done  his  duty  or  obeyed  the  categorical  im- 
perative? What  can  the  rigorist  renounce,  when,  clad  In 
camel's  hair  cloak  and  feeding  upon  locusts  and  wild  honey, 
he  stands  alone  in  the  desert?  If  it  be  valid,  renunciation 
must  have  some  appreciable  content  for  Its  exercise. 

The  thoroughgoing  formalism  of  characteristic  ethics 
may  now  be  recognized  as  the  cause  of  these  dilemmas.  On 
the  Intellectual  side,  the  origin  of  conscience  and  the  ground 
of  rectitude  are  without  explanation,  in  characteristic  ethics, 
which,  from  the  volitional  standpoint,  has  no  justification 
for  freedom  or  duty.     Yet  when  these  principles  are  related 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  275 

to  the  unitary  sense  of  human  striving  they  become  intelligi- 
ble and  mfiuential.  There  Is  a  human  reason  for  conscience, 
just  35  there  is  a  ground  for  rectitude,  while  freedom  and 
duty  have  a  place  In  the  life  that  ascends  from  nature  to 
spirit.  In  the  same  way,  there  is  room  for  renunciation  in 
such  a  course  of  life,  although  it  does  not  follow  that  man 
should  renounce  himself  altogether  for  the  sake  of  an 
abstraction.  Hence  another  glance  at  the  principles  of  in- 
tuitionism will  show  how  simple  they  seem  when  surveyed 
in  the  light  of  man's  whole  life.  The  Ideals  of  right  because 
of  right,  duty  for  the  sake  of  duty,  are  empty  and  mislead- 
ing just  as  mere  renunciation  is  an  unreasonable  demand. 
When  our  living  humanity  asserts  its  claims,  it  will  be  time 
enough  for  such  severe  methods. 

2. — SPECIAL    PROBLEMS    OF    CHARACTERISTIC    ETHICS 

In  addition  to  the  artificial  form  of  characteristic  ethics 
there  arise  certain  special  problems  In  connection  with  its 
categories  of  rectitude  and  duty,  as  these  have  behind  them 
the   mental    functions   of    conscience    and    freedom.     Intui- 
tionism has  had  the  good  fortune  to  put  ethical  science  in 
the  proper  light  and  has  been  equally  happy  in  detaching  its 
ideas   from   the  confused   mass  of  moral  experiences.     But 
with  statement  its  work  has  practically  ceased  and  the  solu- 
tion  of   the   problems   proposed   Is   to   be  sought   elsewhere. 
Our    examination    of    intuitional    ideals    and    maxims    kept 
showing  how   inevitable  are   the  obstructions  rising  in  the 
path  of  a  purely  formal  system,  just  as  It  pointed  out  the 
way  to  a  natural  view  of  life  whose  point  of  departure  was 
man's  position   in   the  world   of   sense-spirit,   whose   motive 
consisted    in    his    free   striving   after   selfhood.     Then    con- 
science began  to  reveal  its  source  and  rectitude  its  ground, 
while    freedom    showed    how    humanity    emancipated    Itself 
from  nature  to  undertake  the  responsibilities  of  spiritual  life 
in  the  form  of  duty.     Thus  viewed,  the  problems  of  charac- 
teristic ethics  become  less  and  less  opaque. 


276  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

a — CONSCIENCE   AS  CONFLICT  WITH   HUMANITY 

The  tragic  way  in  which  the  individual,  who  blindly 
feels  that  he  is  all  of  humanity,  is  opposed  by  the  totality 
of  human  striving,  was  discussed  when  we  looked  at  the 
first  phase  of  characteristic  morality.  Here  it  remains  only 
to  be  pointed  out  how  the  idea  of  humanity  conditions  this 
internal  conflict.  Cleared  of  its  habitual  mystery,  the  com- 
punction of  conscience  seems  to  arise  when  the  naturistic 
individual  wilfully  opposes  the  interests  of  the  human 
world — w^ole,  and  in  the  total  sense  of  human  striving  this 
common  ill  of  human  life  is  none  other  than  the  naturistic 
conflict  of  ego  and  the  social  non-ego.  When  is  the  remorse 
of  conscience  more  keen,  more  characteristic  than  w^hen 
the  blind  ego  opposes  his  petty  interest  to  the  v^^ell-being 
of  the  world  of  humanity?  Man,  whether  we  survey  him 
in  the  light  of  either  naturistic  or  characteristic  ethics,  can 
do  nothing  but  help  or  hinder  humanity,  and  his  virtue  or 
his  vice  comes  for  the  same  primitive  treatment  at  the  bar 
of  a  conscience  which,  in  its  fidelity  to  humanity,  is  partial 
to  no  minor  school  of  morals.  To  represent  conscience  as 
the  voice  of  something  alien  to  humanity  is  eccentric  and 
misleading. 

The  inner  sense  of  compunction  is  secluded  from  every 
explanation  save  that  of  a  wounded  selfhood,  for  that  which 
injured  the  person  wronged  grieves  also  the  self.  Human 
restraint,  which  suffers  one  not  to  feel  anger  unjustly,  is 
evidently  securing  man  against  the  reaction  of  his  humanity 
upon  himself;  just  as  it  inhibits  resentment,  even  when  this 
may  be  just,  that  all  forms  of  hatred  may  be  removed  from 
the  soul.  To  the  individual  who  sees  in  the  self  nothing 
but  an  ego,  conscience  can  only  assume  the  guise  of  mystery 
and  make  its  appeal  as  an  alien  authority ;  but  when  the 
sense  of  selfhood  is  more  fully  realized,  the  feeling  of  ap- 
proval and  disapproval  is  touched  with  human  warmth  and 
assumes  a  personal  form,  so  that  he  who  has  been  the  ag- 
pressor  feels  grieved  with  himself,  now  that  his  humanity  is 
contrasted  with  his  egoism.  Let  it  not  be  suggested  that 
conscientiousness,  in  its  desire  to  relieve  the  individual  from 
any  possible  remorse  that  may  arise,  is  thus  only  another 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  277 

form  of  selfishness;  for  the  "self"  here  involved  is  the 
world-self  of  the  human  order,  or  the  intelligible  ego,  whose 
interests  are  not  petty  and  personal,  but  universal  in  their 
significance.  Only  by  being  alive  to  remorse  and  fearful 
of  resentment  may  one  attain  to  the  inner  worldhood  of  his 
life  and  realize  himself  as  human.  But  the  theory  which 
makes  conscience  an  arbitrary  dictator,  who  inflicts  punish- 
ment as  a  warning  against  future  offenses,  is  as  far  removed 
from  the  humanity  of  conscience  as  is  the  hedonist  who  looks 
for  freedom  from  pain  without  asking  how  pain  is  likely 
arise. 


b — THE     FALLACY     OF     RECTITUDE     AND     ITS     HUMANISTIC 

CORRECTION 

From  its  own  standpoint,  characteristic  morality  cannot 
present  the  problem  of  rectitude  in  any  other  than  a  para- 
doxical form.  This  unhappy  condition  of  affairs  is  involved 
in  the  very  idea  of  autonomy  with  its  circular  form  of 
argumentation,  while  the  moral  judgment  expressed  is 
never  anything  but  an  analytical  one.  Rectitude  thus 
dwells  in  a  hopeless  moral  seclusion  whence  it  cannot  issue 
and  take  its  place  in  the  actual  life  of  pleasure,  pain  and 
desire;  it  transfixes  humanity  upon  a  relentless  ideal  and 
becomes  a  fixation-point  in  the  consciousness  of  the  living, 
striving  individual.  Right  is  right,  but  while  nothing  less, 
it  is  nothing  more.  But  man  is  man,  and  he  keeps  his 
humanity  in  the  midst  of  his  ideals.  Now  the  human  heart 
never  put  forth  the  principle  of  autonomy  with  its  doubtful 
metaphysical  value  and  narrowness  of  logical  range.  Hu- 
manity can  and  docs  make  humanity  an  end,  but  this  is  not 
equivalent  to  saying  that  right  is  right  because  it  is  right; 
man  can  set  up  virtue  and  aim  at  it  so  perfectly  that  we  are 
able  to  see  how  necessary  to  him  are  his  ideals;  but  in  so 
doing  he  surrenders  himself  to  a  principle  of  spiritual  life 
and  not  to  an  analytical  judgment. 

Hesitant  as  was  characteristic  morality  to  invest  the  right 
with  any  appreciable  contents,  the  fact  remains  that  this 
view  of  life  tended  to  inculcate  the  disinterested  in  man. 
In  pursuit  of  his  intuitions,  he  was  led  to  forego  narrow 


278  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

egoism  and  consider  the  beauty  of  the  ideal.  The  claims 
of  humanism  did  not  fail  to  voice  themselves  even  in  the 
attenuated  form  of  idealism,  for  he  who  had  learned  to 
revere  the  ideal  because  of  its  non-naturistic  content,  could 
be  taught  to  love  the  law  when  its  humanistic  value  was 
pointed  out.  When  it  appears  that  the  will  of  the  world 
is  such  that  we  shall  learn  to  abandon  material  interests  for 
spiritual  ones,  we  see  why  we  were  so  sensitive  to  con- 
science, so  responsive  to  duty,  so  rapt  in  our  contemplation 
of  the  ethically  "right."  Rectitude  does  not  consist  of  a 
mere  rule  whose  counterpart  might  be  found  in  some 
mechanical  law,  but  it  contains  the  rule  in  the  natural  way 
that  the  manifold  of  natural  phenomena  represent  a  tew 
general  principles.  Or,  to  vary  the  illustration,  rectitude 
indicates  a  law  not  unlike  those  of  aethetics  whose  intui- 
tions combine  a  universal  form  with  a  living  content. 
Neither  nature  nor  art  makes  use  of  abstractions,  and  ethics 
can  come  near  to  the  life  of  humanity  if  it  seeks  the  uni- 
versal and  disinterested  in  human  life.  Where  the  aca- 
demic interests  of  theory  are  lost  sight  of,  it  can  be  seen  that 
living  individuals  who  are  bent  on  conduct  cleave  to  virtue 
because  of  its  inherent  worth,  and  their  "autonomy"  is  only 
the  lofty  appreciation  of  what  is  noble.  Such  rectitude  is 
beyond  the  reach  of  characteristic  ethics,  for  it  carries  one 
over  into  the  precinct  of  humanity. 

C — THE  WORLD  OF  FREEDOM  AND  FREE  WILL 

Freedom  is  no  special  prerogative  belonging  to  some 
particular  activity  of  consciousness,  but  is  the  very  essence 
of  all  human  striving.  When,  therefore,  a  system  of  ethics 
seeks  to  demonstrate  some  supposed  sense  of  liberty  apart 
from  the  total  activity  of  the  soul,  it  prejudices  the  case 
against  freedom  and  further  weakens  its  arguments  by 
assuming  that  such  freedom  exists  for  the  sake  of  rigorism, 
but  does  not  exist  on  behalf  of  hedonism.  Genuine  free- 
dom, however,  concerns  itself  with  something  more  than  a 
duty-doing  will;  it  is  active  in  connection  with  desire  and 
belongs  indeed  to  the  fullness  of  human  positing.  We  need 
not  assume  the  broad  view  of  Schopenhauer,  when  he  rc- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  279 

duces  all  forms  of  activity  to  the  will  in  the  world,  to  see 
that  volition  is  as  vast  as  humanity.  Our  point  of  view, 
therefore,  leaves  us  midway  between  Kant  and  Schopen- 
hauer, inasmuch  as  we  advance  beyond  the  narrow  rationalism 
of  the  one  and  yet  do  not  proceed  to  the  vague  naturism 
of  the  other ;  hereby,  we  are  able  to  make  freedom  humanis- 
tic and  can  express  the  inner  meaning  of  the  world  of  hu- 
manity by  styling  its  inner  activities  the  world  of  freedom. 
Only  in  humanity  does  such  a  freedom  become  manifest  to 
consciousness,  for  only  in  humanity  is  this  freedom  found. 

From  the  ambiguous  position  that  man  occupies  between 
two  world-orders  it  follows  that  neither  determinism  nor 
libertarianism  can  be  true.  Determinism  seeks  to  sur- 
render man  to  the  realm  of  physical  causality  and  thus  treat 
him  in  the  light  of  thinghood  rather  than  spirithood.  Lib- 
ertarianism reverses  this  process  and  where  its  antagonist 
seeks  to  submerge  man  in  nature,  it  endeavors  to 
lift  him  out  of  sense  into  the  airless  order  of  pure  reason. 
Now  man  is  neither  animal  nor  angel,  but  human;  his 
world  is  neither  nature  nor  spirit,  but  the  atmospheric  realm 
of  humanity.  Hence  human  freedom  is  a  genuine  product 
of  human  striving  independent  of  physical  causality  and  the 
supposed  equilibrium  of  rational  forces  in  consciousness. 
Determinism  need  not  seek  to  forbid  man's  entrance  into 
pure  reason  since  his  humanity  does  not  lead  him  there; 
libertarianism  need  not  fear  that  man  may  sink  into  mere 
sense,  for  his  human  vocation  prevents  such  a  disaster. 
Freedom  exists  and  needs  only  to  be  perfected  by  man  him- 
self in  his  strategic  position  in  the  one  world  which  to  him 
now  looks  like  two  alien  orders  of  matter  and  mind,  of 
sense  and  spirit,  of  nature  and  culture. 

d — IMPERATIVE  DUTY  AS  HUMAN  STRIVING 

There  is  something  sepulchral  in  the  hollow  voice  of 
duty  crying,  "Thou  shalt!"  No  ethical  theory  can  abides 
by  such  an  impersonal  utterance  which  calls  upon  man  to 
surrender  all  to  the  ideal  without  indicating  any  response 
on  the  part  of  the  world.  To  demand  that  man  shall  yield 
all,  and  to  promise  him  nothing  in  return  is  a  paradox  the 


I 


Is 


ir 


28o  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

parallel  of  the  hedonic  are,  where  man  pursues  an  ever- 
eluding  pleasure.  Now  the  apparent  significance  of  duty, 
which  does  not  reveal  itself  so  long  as  the  rationalistic  side 
of  life  is  under  scrutiny,  is  found  to  consist  in  the  total 
order  of  human  existence  wherein  the  ideal  of  perfect  hu- 
manity is  uppermost.  It  is  from  the  abyss  of  humanity 
that  the  voice  of  duty  comes,  and  when  man  has  once  found 
his  center  and  is  conscious  of  the  purpose  of  his  life,  the 
veil  is  done  away  with  in  humanity  and  the  imperative 
character  of  the  good  appears  as  none  other  than  the  endless 
striving  of  humanity  with  nature.  It  is  this  universal  im- 
pulse which  invades  the  private  heart  where  in  its  isolation 
it  appears  as  a  nameless  obligation.  Humanity  is  deter- 
mined to  assert  itself  and  there  is  needed  no  better  proof  of 
this  than  the  consciousness  of  duty.  Only  by  such  an  ap- 
peal to  the  universal  will  of  humanity  are  we  able  to  ac- 
count for  the  strength  and  the  durability  of  the  moral  pas- 
sion. Where  man  seems  to  set  up  nothing  as  the  goal  of  his 
endeavor,  and  where  in  practice  he  carries  on  renunciation, 
as  one  who  hates  his  life,  he  is  really  submitting  to  and 
furthering  the  plan  which  humanity  has  set  for  his  realiza- 
tion. 

In  the  blindness  with  which  duty  asserts  itself,  we  have 
an  example  parallel  to  that  of  desire  which  continues  to  hold 
man  to  nature  even  when  the  impossibility  of  hedonism  has 
been  pointed  out.  Still  he  hopes,  still  he  strives,  all  because, 
whether  as  desire  or  duty,  the  one  longing  for 
humanity  lures  him  on  to  something  he  has  not 
yet  achieved.  In  the  presence  of  this  overwhelming  ten- 
dency to  be  human,  as  it  shows  itself  in  knowledge  and 
action,  in  culture  and  civilization,  hedonic  and  rigoristic 
passions  are  lost  to  view,  and  the  validity  and  force  which 
they  do  have  is  due  to  their  participation  in  the  ceaseless 
stream  of  life.  Where  in  the  spirit  of  optimism,  desire 
deludes  man  with  the  idea  that  nature  can  satisfy  his  striv- 
ing, duty  makes  use  of  a  pessimistic  principle  and,  by  counsel- 
ling man  to  renounce  all  inclination,  all  desire  for  conse- 
quence, persuades  him  to  follow  abstract  duty  as  though  that 
alone  were  safe.  With  the  interests  of  spiritual  humanity  so 
threatened     by    naturistic    tendencies,    there    is    a    certain 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  281 

cogency  in  the  rigoristic  argument  which  urges  man  to 
yield  to  the  ideal,  even  though  the  theory  does  not  invest 
this  with  any  content.  When  humanism  appears,  it  finds 
the  ground  of  naturism  already  broken,  and  where  man  has 
learned  to  obey  law  because  it  is  law,  and  to  follow  duty 
because  it  is  duty,  he  can  further  be  taught  to  strive  for  a 
perfect  humanity  whose  content  is  constantly  enriching  itself 
as  history  advances. 

3 — ESCAPE  FROM  RIGORISM  THROUGH  HUMAN  DIGNITY 

Like  eudaemonism,  rigorism  is  indicative  of  the  general 
view  of  the  theory  that  proposes  it.     One  seeks  to  relate 
man  as  such  to  the  world  of  nature,  where  the  other  en- 
deavors  to   adopt   him   to   the   ideal.     Particular   views  of 
pleasure  and  conscience,  desire  and  duty,  are  lost  sight  of  in 
these  more  philosophical  adjustments  of  man  to  the  approved 
order  of  his  being.     For  this  reason,  the  question  is  one  of 
sufficiency    rather    than    of    demonstration.       Eudaemonism 
does  not  succeed  in  restoring  man  to  his  unity  with  nature, 
while  rigorism  fails  to  raise  him  to  the  ideal  of  spirit.    The 
principle    of    renuncio   overlooks    the    genuine    humanity   of 
mankind,  for  its  ideals  were  not  to  be  revealed  to  flesh  and 
blood,  but  to  some  imaginary  kind  of  men  who  do  not  de- 
sire to  know  or  to  feel.     Where  our  own  view  of  life  keeps 
calling  to  our  attention  the  constant  striving  of  humanity 
to   reach   some   half-guessed   goal,  we  find   it  impossible   to 
believe  that  this  effort  could  be  kept  up  under  the  auspices 
of  a  rigorism  which  negates  everything  but  the  barren  law 
of  obligation,  and  thus  leaves  no  place  for  human  interests; 
and  human  methods.     We  are  called  upon  to  live  and  to  be 
human,  before  we  are  called  upon  to  obey  the  rationalistic 
law  of  duty. 

Life  is  destined  to  triumph  over  its  ideals,  so  that  hu- 
manity rises  above  renunciation  and  asserts  itself  positively. 
Rigorism  cannot  be  justly  criticised  from  the  eudaemonistic 
standpoint  because  its  ideals  are  not  likely  to  yield  happiness 
to  men,  for  they  were  not  expected  to  do  this.  Where  the 
critical  view  is  not  some  particular  theory,  but  the  life  of 
man  itself,  it  becomes  possible  to  remove  renunciation  from 


282  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

the  supreme  position  of  judge  by  saying  that  its  judgments 
are  not  in  accordance  with  humanity  and  that  its  principles 
carried  out  consistently  would  only  defeat  the  ends  of 
human  existence.  Rigorism  assumes  that  it  is  opposing 
nature  for  the  sake  of  the  ideal,  but  in  reality  it  is  directed 
against  culture,  so  that  one  of  the  most  critical  problems 
that  will  soon  arise  in  our  view  of  humanistic  ethics  will  be 
that  of  conduct  versus  culture,  wherein  our  Semitic  prin- 
ciple of  conscience  arises  to  rebuke  our  Aryan  joy  of  in- 
tellectual life  and  its  perfection.  One  need  only  to  recall 
the  deep-seated  antipathy  toward  the  human  understanding 
that  the  categorical  imperative  displayed,  to  see  how  blindly 
the  human  mind  may  renounce,  not  only  sense,  but  also 
reason,  and  then  having  closed  the  path  from  knowledge  to 
reality  seek  another,  leading  from  what  ought  to  be  to  what 
is.  We  must  renounce  truth  in  order  to  secure  goodness, 
or  as  the  truth-hating  words  of  Kant  expressed  it,  "I  had 
to  destroy  knowledge  in  order  to  make  room  for  faith." 
(Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Pref.  2nd.  ed.)  Such  an  attack 
upon  intellectual  life  gives  one  courage  to  repudiate  his 
renunciation  and  continue  to  rely  upon  a  mind  which  may 
have  its  root  in  sense,  where  man's  own  life  begins,  but 
grows  into  intellect  which  participates  in  the  world  of 
spirit.  There  are  some  things  we  cannot  renounce,  and  if 
we  yield  our  immediate  interests  of  sense  we  will  keep  our 
ultimate  interests  of  reason.  Meanwhile,  knowledge  re- 
fuses to  be  destroyed. 

Whatever  man  does  or  suflFers  must  be  In  keeping  with 
his  human  dignity  as  a  human  being,  so  that  ethics  seems 
to  stand  in  need  of  some  substitute  for  renunciation.  This 
cannot  be  found  until  the  conditions  of  human  dignity  have 
been  laid  down  in  a  manner  consonant  with  man's  ethical 
program.  Characteristic  ethics  has  given  us  a  starting- 
point,  and  we  must  begin  where  that  theory  ends.  The  full 
problem  of  human  life,  however,  is  not  to  be  discussed  under 
the  head  of  dignity  alone,  for  naturistic  ethics  has  been 
equally  successful  in  deducing  a  moral  category,  that  of 
value.  For  this  reason,  humanistic  ethics  will  be  seen  to 
have  two  poles  in  the  value  and  dignity  of  human  life. 

In  order  to  save  our  sense  of  human  responsibility,  wc 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  283 

must  find  some  substitute  for  the  categorical  imperative 
Our  age  is  characterized  by  an  inner  freedom  which  toler- 
ates no  artificial  restraints  from  laws  which  seem  all  too 
human,  so  that  he  who  would  rescue  responsibility  must 
rescue  it  from  "duty."  Not  only  Nora  in  ''A  Doll's  House" 
has  her  fling  at  duty,  but  the  exaltie  everywhere  is  looking 
toward  the  higher  law."  This  Anatole  France's  Therese 
says.  Yes,  morality,  duty,  I  know.  But  how  hard  to  dis- 
cover what  IS  duty.  I  assure  you  that  for  three  quarters  of 
my  time  1  do  not  know  where  duty  lies.  It  is  like  the 
hedgehog  that  belonged  to  our  English  governess  at  Join- 
ville;  we  used  to  spend  the  whole  evening  looking  for  it 
under  the  furniture ;  and  when  we  found  it,  it  was  time  to  go 
to  bed.        (The  Red  Lily,  tr.  Stephens,  II). 


PART  FOUR 


HUMANISTIC  ETHICS 


MAJOR  AND  MINOR  MORALITY 


I-— THE  LIFE  OF  HUMANITY  IN   SPIRIT 

The  general  proposition  that  has  guided  our  discussion 
of  man's  career  in  the  world  asserts  that  life  consists  in  the 
ceaseless  striving  of  spiritual  humanity  with  material  nature, 
as  also  in  the  creation  of  an   independent  order  of  being. 
The  origin,   development  and   culmination   of  this  striving 
were  surveyed  in  the  first  part  of  this  work,  when  we  were 
seeking  to   portray   the   problems  of   life.     From   this   uni- 
versal view  of  humanity  we  were  forced  to  turn  aside  to 
examine  into  the  claims  of  naturism,  with  its  principle  of 
immediate  feeling,  and  of  characteristic  ethics,  with  its  ideal 
of  an  ultimate  rectitude  demanding  the  renunciation  of  life 
in   the   world   of   sense.        We   have   seen   what  these   two 
theories  accomplish  for  a  philosophy  of  life,  and  have  noted 
wherein  they  failed  to  lead  man  to  the  goal  of  his  existence. 
At  the  same  time  we  have  tried  to  show  how  the  pursuit  of 
pleasure  and  the  desire  for  happiness,  as  well  as  the  con- 
straint of  conscience  and  the  free  renunciation  of  life  itself, 
present  phenomena  so  self-contradictory  that  neither  naturis- 
tic  nor  characteristic  ethics  can  account  for  them,  so  that 
we  must  resort  to  a  larger  conception  of  man's  human  prob- 
lem in  order  to  see  how  inevitable  are  such  things  as  the 
paradox    of    ;      isure    and    the    aimlessness    of    desire,    the 
mystery  of  conscience  and  the  contradiction  of  duty.    These 
common  enemies  of  our  traditional  ethical  view^s,  as  well  as 
others  like  egoism  and  altruism,  freedom  and  fate,  autonomy 
and  heteronomy,  have  been  subsumed,  we  hope,  under  the 
general    proposition   that   humanity   strives  onward   toward 
self-realization. 

Finally,   the   idea  of  human   life   as  such   is  to   have   a 
hearing;  and  humanity,  no  longer  as  a  standard  for  judging 

287 


288  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

other  views,  but  as  a  system,  may  now  be  surveyed  for  Its 
own  sake.  Part  Four  of  our  work  thus  begins  where  Part 
One  concluded,  while  the  criticism  of  conventional  systems 
as  taken  up  in  Part  Two  and  Part  Three  has  only  rein- 
forced our  conviction  that  humanity  in  itself,  apart  from 
pleasure  and  rectitude,  or  desire  and  duty,  contains  a  life 
that  is  worthy  of  thinking  and  living.  In  carrying  on  such 
an  examination  of  human  striving,  we  do  not  assume  that 
man  will  live  without  desires  or  duties,  nor  do  we  seek  in 
any  other  way  to  set  aside  those  general  notions  of  the  posi- 
tive and  negative  forms  of  life  suggested  by  the  two 
theories;  we  desire  only  that  ethics  abandon  these  eccen- 
tric positions  and  seek  the  center  of  life  in  humanity  itself, 
leaving  the  principles  of  eudaemonia  and  renunciation  to 
find  subordinate  positions.  Such  an  attempt  to  systematize 
our  humanity  is  no  simple  task  to  be  accomplished  In  a  word 
or  two;  new  moral  categories  must  be  found  to  contain  the 
idea  of  a  living,  striving  humanity  which  can  no  longer  be 
subsumed  under  a  plastic  good  or  a  dynamic  duty;  new 
ideals  must  be  created  to  guide  the  activities  of  the  emanci- 
pated human  spirit  which  no  longer  surrenders  to  virtue  and 
conscience ;  and  everywhere  the  heritage  of  former  systems 
must  be  adjusted  to  the  needs  of  a  new  ethical  age.  In 
pursuing  such  investigations,  we  shall  be  guided  by  our 
original  point  of  view,  according  to  which  the  human 
creature  proceeded  to  withdraw  from  external  nature  and 
elaborate  an  inner  life  of  character  in  the  world  of  human- 
ity. To  realize  this  ideal,  our  ethical  system  must  survey 
humanity  in  the  inness  and  totality  of  its  nature;  then  the 
proper  categories  as  well  as  sufficient  methods  will  appear. 
The  ethical  systems  that  have  been  under  scrutiny  have  not 
surveyed  man  In  accordance  with  his  position  in  the  universe ; 
hedonism  has  put  him  in  nature,  intuitionism  has  taken  him 
from  it  abruptly,  while  his  exact  condition  is  one  of  a  pass- 
ing through  or  leaving  behind  him  the  natural  order  whence 
his  existence  was  derived ;  hence  the  human  coloring  in  life. 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  289 


2 — HUMANITY  AS   A   SYSTEM 

Our  view  of  man*s  moral  life  has  sought  to  survey  the 
ethical  problem  in  its  totality,  although  it  has  not  failed  to 
observe  how  particular  ethical  systems  tend  to  formulate 
and  characterize  the  question  of  life.  In  this  way  arises  a 
two-fold  view  of  conduct,  one  phase  of  which  exhibits  a 
major  morality  whose  premises  are  found  in  the  universal 
conditions  of  life,  and  a  minor  morality  content  to  arrange 
the  details  of  conduct  for  the  time.  Major  morality  in- 
volves the  position  that  man  occupies  in  the  world  as  a 
whole  and  assumes  to  know  something  about  the  sense  of 
living;  it  does  not  isolate  man  and  seek  to  order  his  conduct 
as  to  so  many  acts  here  and  there,  but  surveys  him  in  his 
proper  setting  of  humanity  with  the  aim  of  interpreting  his 
ethical  vocation.  As  a  result  it  tends  to  express  the  inner 
nature  of  man  and  the  totality  of  his  existence,  while  the 
moral  conception  of  being,  instead  of  being  something  ex- 
ceptional, appears  in  natural  adjustment  to  the  rest  of  his 
spiritual  functions.  In  other  words,  major  morality  re- 
fuses to  assume  an  eccentric  position  in  man  and  proceeds 
at  once  to  the  center  of  his  being;  ethics  then  becomes  a 
phase  of  man's  life  but  not  the  whole  of  it,  and  humanity 
rises  above  its  ideal. 

The  unsystematic  view  of  humanity  that  made  man  con- 
sist of  either  feeling  or  will  resulted  in  the  production  of  a 
minor  morality.  In  itself,  such  a  plan  may  have  its  place 
in  the  life  of  a  creature  who  asks,  "What  ought  I  to  do?", 
but  this  point  of  personal  interest  in  the  moral  order  docs 
not  justify  the  philosopher  in  assuming  that  his  practical 
rule  of  action  should  become  the  constructive  maxim  of  the 
whole  universe.  Minor  morality  proceeds  in  ignorance  of 
the  nature  of  action  and  assumes  that  the  "free  moral  agent" 
can  perform  a  deed  with  his  will  alone.  Already  we  have 
seen  how  pleasure  fails  to  account  for  the  activities  of  man 
and  the  same  may  be  said  of  abstract  virtue.  Man  needs 
more  than  conduct  to  achieve  his  humanity  and  the  moralis- 
tic view  of  life  is  in  no  wise  calculated  to  evince  man's  self- 
hood and  worldhood.  For  this  reason,  major  morality  finds 
it  necessary  to  depart  from  the  morality  of  doing  duty  and 


290  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

satisfying  desire,  for  a  form  of  life  which  springs  from  the 
center  of  man's  nature  and  expands  over  the  totality  of  his 
being. 

What  is  wanting  in  the  minor  morality  h  a  systematic 
treatment  of  the  life-problem;  this  found  and  furthered,  we 
realize  that  the  world  is  aiming  to  produce,  not  moralists, 
but  men.  According  to  the  plan  which  has  guided  the  in- 
troductory and  critical  parts  of  this  work,  life  receives  its 
meaning  as  well  as  its  momentum  from  the  world  in  which 
man  finds  himself,  while  the  moral  life  is  a  means,  or  form 
of  conduct,  involved  in  the  perfection  of  humanity.  Where 
minor  morality  fails  is  in  its  inability  to  recognize  its  own 
position,  as  something  secondary  and  preparatory  to  life-in- 
itself,  as  a  means  and  not  an  end.  Life  exists  for  life's 
sake ;  morality  is  called  into  being  for  the  purpose  of  further- 
ing human  existence.  Moralistic  thinking  and  living 
dwindles  and  fails,  because  they  refuse  to  participate  in  the 
one  world-movement  of  man  from  nature  to  humanity;  be- 
cause they  find  no  logical  place  in  the  history  of  human  cul- 
ture. The  larger  ethics,  however,  is  never  ignorant  of  or 
inimical  to  the  total  problem  of  life,  and  it  is  with  appro- 
priate language  that  Plato,  Spinoza  and  Schopenhauer  des- 
cribe the  supremacy  of  the  moral  ideal.  They  do  not  take 
morality  for  granted,  but  derive  it  from  the  totality  of  the 
ontological  order. 

The  ethical  is  a  part  of  man's  life  but  not  the  all-engross- 
ing consideration ;  with  it  other  methods  of  life  may  well 
be  compared,  to  it  none  can  be  subordinated.  Rights  is 
below  the  moral  plane  as  religion  is  above  it,  while  politics 
and  arts  are  similarly  adjustable  to  the  ethical  zone  of 
human  consciousness.  There  is  a  form  of  living  which  is 
infra-moral  where  man  dwells  in  nature,  and  there  is  an- 
other stage  of  being  where  man  is  supra-moral  in  the  art 
and  religion  of  his  humanity.  These  victorious  forms  of 
culture  give  us  leave  to  live,  and,  freed  from  the  labor  of 
desire  and  the  drudgery  of  duty,  we  begin  to  breathe  our 
proper  atmosphere.  As  art  delivers  man  from  the  thral- 
dom of  sense  and  turns  pleasure  from  passion  into  schtiment, 
so  religion  transforms  conscience  and  its  sting  into  holy 
equanimity    and    suffers    man    to    be    himself.       Man    thus 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  291 

triumphs  over  the  outer  conditions  of  his  being  where  sense- 
percepts  furnish  so  many  given  points  of  departure,  just  as 
Jlln""hr^''  "'"  fi«d  leas  of  the  inner  conditions  wherl 
alien  obligations  are  laid  upon  him.  Minor  morality  sees 
on  y  one  form  o  life,  and  to  the  ethical  it  seeks  to  suL^d'! 
nate  all  taste,  all  truth,  all  worship. 

Minor  morality  has  ever  made  the  ethical  life  too  simple 

^u^htTo  T  \"  '' u'f^  7''  '"°^^'  ^Sent";  he  has  be  n 
taught  to  know  himself"  and  to  ask  "What  ought  I  to  do'" 
Conscience  has  become  fixed  idea,  rectitude  frozen  custom, 
and  duty  the  one  thing  needful.  Both  moral  hemisphere 
have  been  mapped  out  according  to  this  simple  view  of  man. 
Hedonism  has  been  as  insistent  upon  its  calculus  as  the 
nf^r-I!)-    !?  '^"^"="^V  ^«"'"K  to  observe  the  possibilities 

rLl^t     '"^""t      V   '^°'""'  "  *'"'  "^"  """^d  benevolence 
right   and    self-realization    wrong.     Humanity    and    indivi- 

tZi^:J    (  ^"''^•'"•have  been  lost  to  this  simplified 

statement  of  minor  morality,  and  where  the  absolutism  of 
the  one  found  something  immutable  in  rectitude,  the  rela- 
tivism of  the  other  was  none  the  less  devoted  to  the  acquired 
piety  of  long  practiced  virtues.  The  failure  was  the  failure 
to  survey  man  m  his  humanistic  atmosphere ;  the  result  was 
telt  when  minor  ethics  found  no  way  to  account  for  progress 
and  re-valuation  As  a  system  it  looked  upon  men  as 
dwarfs  and  could  neither  explain  their  motives  nor  satisfy 
their  desires.  ■' 

This  common  failure  to  find  humanity  is  shown  in  the 
Ideal  which  we  can  imagine  the  theorists  to  have  elaborated. 
Ihe     good     man   hedonic   has  sought  the   largest  sum   of 
pleasures  or  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number ;  or  in 
the  spirit  of  benevolence,  he  has  surrendered  private  pleasure 
that  another  hedonist  might  have  the  enjoyment  of  it.  What 
IS  the  result?     Certainly  nothing  heroic,  nothing  which  can 
put  the    good    man  in  the  system  of  major  morality.     Sup- 
pose we  consider  the  "good"  man  rigoristic,  who  has  been 
so  hedonically     bad"  as   to  spurn   pleasure   and   to  pursue 
duty  at   the  cost  of  happiness.     His  character  is  cramped 
because  It  makes  no  room  for  culture;  this  "good"  man  is 
stupid  in  his  severities    just  as  he  is  wanting  in  a  sense  of 
humanity  and  life  s  values.     The  usual  method  with  ancient 


I 

i 


292  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

Stoic  and  modern  Protestant  tends  to  make  "bad"  Preferable 
to  "good",  for  the  latter  quality  lacks  all  suggestion  of  the 
heroic  and  histrionic.  The  stage  could  make  no  use  of  the 
man  of  desire  or  the  man  of  duty,  because  the  drama,  which 
consists  in  relating  the  individual  to  some  pregnant  situa- 
tion, could  never  arouse  enthusiasm  over  the  entrance  ot 
the  egoist  into  the  social  order,  or  the  conflict  between  the 
rigorist  and  life  according  to  nature. 

The  predominance  of  the  nature-ideal  over  the  culture- 
ideal  reveals  a  painful  indifference  to  the  one  life  problem 
Hedonist   and   rigorist   either   despair   of   life   or   regard    it 
non  est  disputandum,  so  busy   are  they  with  the  manifold 
that  they  overlook  the  unity  of  life,  and  are  easily  lost  among 
the  details  of  a  hedonic  calcalus,  or  an  array  of  virtuous 
virtues.     Imagine  the  thinker  pondering  upon  the  problem? 
What  is  a  man  supposed  to  do?     Can  he  receive  light  from 
a  theory  which  tells  him  how  to  conserve  his  pleasure    or 
how  to  promote  his  virtue?     Minor  morality  h^  ever  been 
guilty  of  postponing  the  central  issue  for  subordinate  ques- 
tions, and  its  particular  theories  cannot  stand  for  humanity. 
Spencer  begins  by  accusing  all  other  views  of  ignoring  the 
"causal  connection"  between  ethics  and  life,  and  ends  by 
turning    from    "relative"    to    "absolute"    morality,    but    his 
actual   discussion   of   the   ethical   problem   does   not   become 
such  fine  premise  and  postulate,  for  the  evo  utionist  is  over- 
come by  naturistic  hedonism  which  fails  to  locate  humanity. 
Neither  desire  nor  duty  is  final  in  human  life ;  both  are 
means  to  an  end  which  is  the  culture  of  humanity.     Let  it 
not  be   protested   that,   as  an   ideal,   duty  is  so  remote,   so 
ultimate,  that  man  can  never  attain  to  it,  much  less  exceed 
its  demands,  for  the  same  may  be  said  of  desire    which  is 
positive  and  concrete,  where  duty  is  negative  and  abstract. 
Man  never  performs  his  duty ;  man  never  realizes  his  desires; 
the  argument  under  the  category  of  the  unattainable  therefore 
is  invalid.     Humanity  is  beyond  desire  and  duty;  neverthe- 
less  it  is  so  germane  to  man  that  it  will  be  satisfying  to  him 
and  be  realized  by  him  in  a  way  unknown  to  naturistic  aim 
and   rationalistic   duty.     Man  was   not  made   for   pleasure, 
else  he  had  been  only  a  creature  of  feeling;  he  was  not  made 
for  duty,  for  then  he  were  only  a  will ;  but  he  was  made  for 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  293 

humanity  which  in  its  unity  is  beyond  the  comflict  of  desire 
and  duty.     The  realization  of  humanity  is  the  unum  neces- 
sarium   for   man,   who   will   ever   be  confronted   with   duty 
undone   and    desire   unrealized.     "Man    is   only   completely 
man  ,  said  Schiller,— not  when  he  indulges  sense  or  obeys 
conscience    but— "when    he    plays     (Letters    of    Aesthetic 
li^ducation).    And  by  this  amiable  remark  he  seeks  to  point 
out  the  path  to  a  perfect  humanity  which  in  its  aesthetic  unity 
is  beyond  both  sense  and  understanding.     Man  is  only  man 
when  he  attains  to  the  inner  unity  of  his  humanity;  that  is 
when  the  conflict  between  desire  and  duty,  ego  and  alter 
has  subsided.     It  was  the  perception  of  this  truth  as  a  re- 
ligious principle  that  led  Schleiermacher  to  look  for  certain 
prophetic  mediators  between  mere  man  and  infinite  human- 
ity—Mx///fr  zwtschen  dem  eingeschrankten  Menschen  und 
der  unendhchen  Menscheit.      (Reden   uber   Religion,    I.   S. 
10)       Man  is  only  man  vi^hen  his  art  and  worship  disclose 
the  harmony  of  the  world  without  and  the  endlessness  of 
the  same  world  within  his  soul,  and  it  is  the  holy  office 
of  artists  and  religionists  to  arouse  within  human  conscious- 
ness a  sense  of  destiny  which  is  lost  to  the  minor  moralist 
with  his  maxims.     When  this  higher  view  of  ethics  is  held 
we  shall  cease  to  wonder  whether  art  has  or  has  not  a  moral 
function,    for   instead    of   measuring   the    free   creations   of 
genius  according  to  the  minor  principles  of  desire  and  duty, 
we  shall  find  for  them  a  secure  place  in  the  major  morality 
of  a  striving  humanity. 

3 — THE   MINOR   NATURE  OF   HEDONISM   AND  INTUITIONISM 

When  the  moral  life  is  surveyed  from  an  independent 
standpoint,  it  tends  to  show  how  the  extremes  of  the  schools 
meet  after  long  and  petty  disagreement.  As  far  back  as 
the  antique  decadence,  Stoic  and  Epicurean,  like  Herod  and 
Pilate,  made  friends  in  the  midst  of  their  enmities  and 
agreed  upon  a  nihilistic  life-ideal  of  ataraxy.  Our  own 
decadence  has  taught  us  similar  lessons,  and  to-day  our  in- 
tuitionsts  are  ready  for  a  mild  form  of  hedonism  in  the  guise 
of  eudaemonism,  while  the  utilitarian  realizes  that  conscience 
and  "common-sense  morality"  may  sustain  some  relation  to 


294  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

the  life  of  man.     The  apparent  superiority  of  characteristic 
ethics  may  be  attributed  to  the  fact  that  it  has  ever  been 
contrasted  with  the  hedonic  conception  of  life  and  not  with 
life  itself,  and  when  once  the  august  significance  of  inner 
humanity  dawns  upon  the  mind,  the  petty  ideals  of  character- 
istic morality  are  lost  sight  of.     Rigorism  is  not  life,  but 
rigor  mortis,  and  according  to  the  moral  pedantry  of  its  ad- 
vocates it  is  required  to  die  dans  les  formes.     It  is  an  un- 
natural theory,  and  while  it  may  seem  superior  to  hedonism, 
the  source  of  man's  genuine  moral  life  is  found  in  the  latter. 
Both   hedonic  and   intuitional  schools  betray  a  lack  of 
unity  in  their  attempted  adjustments  of  man  to  the  world, 
which  fact  is  probably  due  to  their  failure  to  view  man  in 
the  light  of  his  humanity.     Hedonism,  which  is  excessively 
naturistic,  makes  human  desire  strong  but  leaves  conscience 
weak  and  ineffectual.     Intuitionism  has  done  much  for  the 
moral  law,  but  its  artificial  rationalism  has  weakened  man 
in    strengthening    duty.       The    disciple    of    rigorism    is    a 
creature  of  fear,  he  suffers  from  **bad  conscience",  and  is 
incapable  of  adjusting  himself  to  the  world.     Neither  view 
of   life   is   satisfactory,    for   neither   considers   the    intrinsic 
quality  of  humanity.     An  excess  of  naturistc  desire  makes 
man  heavy  and  dull,  and  the  continued  enjoyment  of  pleas- 
ure unfits  him  for  the  vocation  of  man  in  the  world.     On 
the  other  hand,  the  surplus  of  rationalistic  duty  paralyzes 
man*s  human  efforts,  since  he  despairs  of  ever  obeying  con- 
science or  satisfying  duty ;  thus  the  yoke  of  obligation  hinders 
his  creative  powers  in  the  world  of  humanity.     Morality  is 
overdone  in  action  but  falls  short  in  insight  and  consistency. 
The  whole  sense  of  living  is  ignored,  and  the  creative  nature 
of  humanity  is  set  aside  for  the  sake  of  minor  considerations 
called   happiness  and   duty.     Minor   ethics,   represented   by 
our  conventional  theories,  fails  to  relate  man  to  the  world, 
for  it  does  not  see  that  the  problems  of  politics  are  not  in- 
dependent of  those  of  physics,  or  the  idea  of  humanity  in- 
different to  that  of  nature.     Hedonism,  abandons  man  to 
nature  as  though  he  were  only  an  animal ;  rigorism  removes 
him  from  it  altogether  as  though  he  were  more  than  human. 
But  man  with  his  ever-enlarging  humanity  is  destined  for 
something  different  from  a  naturism  or  a  rationalism,  and  a 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  295 

sense  of  his  importance  compels  philosophy  to  abandon  the 
narrow  forms  of  minor  morality  for  the  human  possibilities 
of  a  major  morality.  The  essence  of  the  larger  morale  con- 
sist* in  asserting  the  unity  of  man's  spiritual  nature  as  well 
as  the  totality  of  the  human  world-order.  Minor  ethics 
relates  separate  human  faculties  to  isolated  facts  of  either 
nature  or  reason. 

The  explanation  of  the  failure  attending  both  hedonism 
and  intuitionism  is  thus  to  be  found  in  the  eccentric  position 
which  they  occupy  in  their  view  of  life.  They  never  place 
themselves  in  a  position  to  appreciate  the  integrity  of  human 
existence,  but  content  themselves  by  viewing  conscience  »c 
faculty  of  the  soul,  and  pleasure  as  a  phase  of  life;  mean- 
while life  itself  waits  for  just  evaluation  as  to  its  character 
and  world-significance.  The  best  that  either  hedonism  or 
rigorism  can  do  is  to  explain  isolated  acts  of  the  general 
run  of  mankind,  where  the  individual  is  confronted  by  con- 
dition and  not  theory.  Men  do  seek  pleasures,  men  do  per- 
form duties,  but  do  such  obvious  statements  of  every-day 
facts  throw  a  far-reaching  light  on  the  problem  of  life?  The 
meaning  of  life  appears  most  clearly  in  the  exceptional  and 
gifted  individual,  who  is  raised  above  the  necessities  of 
desire  and  duty,  and  is  enabled  in  the  full  freedom  of  human- 
ity to  perform  a  genuine  dttd.  In  the  light  of  these  sign- 
ificant performances,  the  major  form  of  morality  assumes  a 
justly  august  form.  What  perfection  of  hedonism  or  rigor- 
ismcan  explain  the  dialectical  activity  of  Plato,  the  martial 
operations  of  Caesar,  the  piety  of  St.  Francis,  the  genius  of 
Raphael,  the  philosophical  poetics  of  Goethe?  Not  one  of 
these  sons  of  men  did  his  duty  or  gratified  his  desires;  the 
several  acts  which  they  performed  were  above  virtue  and 
happiness.  This  aristocratic  view  of  mankind  may  possibly 
be  as  fruitful  as  the  vigorous  democracy  which  seeks  morality 
cither  in  a  primitive  social  contract,  or  in  the  greatest  happi- 
ness of  the  greatest  number.  Such  a  morality  is  of  the 
minor  sort,  for  it  consists  only  of  restraint,  while  major 
morality  premises  the  self-affirmation  of  the  soul  as  the  one 
thing  needful  and  valuable. 

In  addition  to  this  false  centrism,  our  theories  have  ever 
clung  to   an   unworthy  and   unintelligible   naturism.     The 


\ 


296  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

genuine  life  of  man  is  a  culture-condition  a  quired  in  the 
assertion  of  humanism.  It  was  not  only  Hoddcs  who  saw 
morality  arise  in  connection  with  the  status  naturalis;  practi- 
cally all  hedonism  deals  with  raw  feelings  of  pleasure  and 
pain,  which  under  sufficient  treatment  flower  in  the  beauti- 
ful and  the  sublime.  The  rigorist,  in  his  perpetual  hatred 
of  pleasure,  has  been  similarly  dull  to  the  possibilities  of 
culture  and  has  relegated  duty  to  the  service  of  a  blind  and 
uncouth  will.  Now,  it  is  the  culture-life,  not  the  nature- 
life,  which  makes  man,  and  morality  should  legislate  for 
him  a  fronte  rather  than  a  tergo,  that  his  superior  nature, 
or  his  humanity,  may  be  kept  before  the  mind.  Minor 
morality,  as  expressed  by  particular  theories,  has  thus  failed 
to  conceive  of  the  unity  which  exists  in  the  life  of  culture. 
Naturalism  and  rationalism  have  been  unwilling  to  approach 
reality;  in  ethics,  they  remain  where  Kant  placed  them: 
i.  c,  in  the  very  midst  of  the  phenomenal  order. 

In  their  unfliching  naturism,  both  systems  have  ignored 
the  life  of  culture  and  in  so  far  have  fallen  short  of  the 
ideal  of  humanity.  The  ancient  who  did  not  distinguish 
between  individual  and  society  was  similarly  naive  in  the 
presence  of  the  difference  between  nature  a:  1  culture.  Our 
problem,  how^ever,  is  not  the  problem  of  plastic  virtue  or  a 
formal  good.  Early  in  modern  ethics  the  conflict  between 
egoism  and  altruism  was  met,  and  how  the  problem  is  to 
find  ultimate  solution  remains  to  be  seen ;  this,  however,  is 
certain:  that  Hobbist  egoism  cannot  express  the  moral  situa- 
tion which  necessarily  includes  the  social  factor.  A  second 
step  remains  to  be  taken:  ethics  must  advance  beyond  na- 
ture, as  it  superseded  the  ego  with  society  and  is  now  in  the 
midst  of  a  prosaic  socio-economic  system.  The  claims  of 
culture  are  equal  to  those  of  society;  in  fact,  they  are  the 
same,  since  both  relate  to  an  overarching  humanity.  But 
the  condition  of  ethics  to-day,  where  naturism  still  holds  the 
field,  is  as  far  from  the  ideal  of  humanity  as  it  was  in  the 
days  of  Hobbes,  who  was  no  more  biased  in  his  doctrine  of 
self-love  than  we  are  in  our  naturism. 

Thus  far,  the  search  for  humanity,  which  has  led  thought 
away  from  a  narrow  egoism,  has  done  little  more  than  pro- 
duce a  social  ideal,  which  is  either  a  political  aggregate  or 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  297 

a  social  organism.  The  inness  of  social  life  is  as  much  in 
need  of  a  prophet  as  was  the  soul  before  Augustine  dis- 
covered the  interior  sense  of  mankind.  True,  we  have 
Schiller  who  may  stand  in  just  this  prophetic  relation  to 
the  human  world-order.  He  it  was  who  showed  us  how* 
humanity  consists,  not  of  outer  circumstance,  but  of  inner 
conditions,  and  taught  us  to  look  for  unity  in  men  instead 
of  diversity.  Yet  Schiller  cannot  overcome  the  moralistic 
prejudice  implanted  in  him  by  Kant,  for  although  in  the 
essay  on  "Grace  and  Dignity"  he  places  humanity  above 
hedonic  perfection  of  sense  and  rigoristic  perfection  of 
reason,  his  "Letters  on  Aesthetical  Education"  treat  beauty 
as  the  play  between  sense  and  reason,  and  make  art  the 
most  efficient  means  of  turning  a  sensationalist  into  a  moral- 
ist. 

Finally,  it  must  be  admitted  that  while  both  schools  have 
developed  only  the  minor  ethics,  they  have  culminated  in 
characteristic  forms  of  life-philosophy,  that  is,  of  major 
morality.  This  appears  in  the  hedonic  philosophy  of  eudae- 
monism  and  the  intuitionist  ideal  of  rigorism.  From  these 
we  learn  to  ask  whether  life  has  value  and  man  dignity, 
because  our  attention  is  called  to  the  question  concerning 
man's  position  in  the  universe  and  the  total  significance  of 
his  life.  Hence,  where  hedonism  is  minor,  eudaemonism  is 
major,  and  where  intuitionism  is  of  the  lower  order,  rigorism 
assumes  a  position  in  the  higher  one.  In  other  words,  when 
a  thinker  discusses  the  "arithmetic  of  pleasure"  he  is  a  minor 
moralist;  but  when  he  asks  whether  man  should  have  im- 
mediate or  remote  interests  he  becomes  a  major  moralist. 
As  to  intuitionism,  if  the  philosopher  is  anxious  to  know 
whether  conscience  can  err,  his  is  a  minor  position;  when 
he  would  inquire  whether  man  should  affirm  or  deny  himseli 
in  the  world,  he  suddenly  assumes  the  role  of  major  moral 
prophet.  In  one  case  he  discusses  mere  conduct  of  the  punc- 
tual will,  in  the  other  he  views  the  moral  vocation  of  the 
free  human  spirit.  The  following  table  will  serve  to  show 
how  this  classification  affects  our  ethical  thinkers: 


298  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


Major   Moralists 
Plato,     whose     ethics     is 
based  upon  a  system 
of  physics  and   poli- 
tics. 
Aristotle;     his     ideal     of 
moderation  is  a  part 
of    his    philosophical 
energism. 
Hobbes;    like    Plato,    he 
finds    ethics    in    the 
physico-political. 
Spinoza;  unrelated  to  the 
modern    controversy, 
he    creates    a    major 
morale, 
Shaf tsbury ;    whose    com- 
monplace   views    are 
related    to    a   system 
of  life. 
Hume;     his     theory     of 
"custom"    unites    the 
speculative    aad    the 
practical. 
Schopenhauer;  he  follows 
with   the  consistency 
the  Will-to-live. 
Spencer,     who     does    not 
miss  the  "causal  con- 
nection" of  conduct. 
Nietzsche,      who      while 
mentally  blind  was  able 
to    see    "beyond    good 
and  evil." 


Minor  Moralists 

Socrates,  who  repudiates 
the  physical  for  the 
ethicaL 

The  Stoics,  who  rush 
unprepared  to  mere 
conduct. 
The  Epicureans,  who  do 
the  same  from  an- 
other view-point. 

Cudworth-Clarke :  their 
antipathy  to  Hobbes 
warps  their  views. 

Butler,  whose  noble  sys- 
tem of  self-love  and 
conscience  just  misses 
systcmatization. 

Price,  a  mere  "intuition- 

Hutcheson :  his  humanis- 
tic standard  suggests 
major  morality. 

Adam  Smith;  his  quest 
of  the  origin  blinds 
him  to  the  ground  of 
morality. 

Kant;  like  Socrates  he 
surrenders  his  ideal 
of  knowledge  to  the 
moralistic. 

Intuitionist  and  Hedon- 
ist; eager  to  defend 
doctrines  they  fail  to 
survey  the  moral  life 
of  humanity. 


Both  hedonism  and  intuitionism  break  through  their  trad- 
itional borders  when  they  lead  naturistic  and  characteristic 
ethics  to  the  major  forms  of  eudaemonism  and  rigorism. 
Major  morality  does  not  seek  to  set  either  of  these  views  at 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUxMAN  LIFE  299 

naught,  nor  does  it  pit  one  against  the  other;  it  strives  to 
arrange  them  in  the  order  of  lower  and  higher,  according 
to  which  one  becomes  an  introductory,  the  other  an  inter- 
mediate, form  of  humanistic  ethics.  To  reach  full  human- 
ity, ethics  must  increase  the  quantity  of  these  staid  views 
and  thus  raise  them  from  the  petty  prudential  and  legalistic 
notions  of  life  to  a  view  consonant  with  the  world  of  in- 
terior existence.  The  contrast  between  the  major  and  minor 
formulations  of  the  life-doctrine  appears  in  a  new  form, 
when  one  catalogues  side  by  side  such  maxims  as  may  be 
conceived  as  serving  in  the  larger  and  lesser  aspects  of  hu- 
man conduct.  Both  the  hedonic  and  intuitional  theories  of 
ethics  will  be  found  to  fall  into  the  class  of  minor  morals 
while  the  contrary  ideals  of  self-assertion  and  self-abnegation 
repose  among  the  major  maxims. 


Major  Morals 
Do    what    thou     wilst — 

Fay    ce    que    vouldras. 

(Rabelais.) 
Will  thyself. 
Slay   thyself — Sterbe   und 

werde.     (  Goethe. ) 
Live  for  the  ideal. 
Be  thyself. 

Postulate  life. 
Work  the  works  of  con- 
templation. 

Do  nothing.     (Taoism.) 

Assert,  or  deny,  the  Will- 
to- Live.  (Schopen- 
hauer. ) 

Renounce. 

Will  the  Will-to-Suffer. 
(Neitzsche.) 


Minor  Morals. 
Do  thy  duty. 


Live  for  others. 
Seek  pleasure. 

Live  according  to  law. 

Seek  the  greatest  happi- 
ness of  the  greatest 
number. 

Always  choose  the  right. 

Promote  the  health  of  the 
social  organism.  ( Steph- 
en.) 

Act,  act,  act. 

Be  good. 

Obey. 

Be  good  and  be  happy. 


300  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 


Major  Morals 
Acquiesce,    and    will 
world  as  a  whole. 


th« 


Minor  Morals 
Act  as  if  the  maxim  of 
thy  action  were  to  be- 
come by  thy  will  a  un- 
iversal law  of  nature. 
(Kant.) 


The  major  maxims  incite  man  to  work  from  within  as 
in  a  world  of  humanity,  his  merit  consisting  in  the  ability  to 
improvise  rather  than  to  follow  the  score  of  another.  Minor 
morals  are  ever  social  in  their  rapport,  and  they  call  upon 
man  to  live  in  an  afferent  rather  than  an  efferent  fashion 
for  something  other,   whether   a  person   or   an   impersonal 


norm. 


4. — ^THE  PRAGMATIC  REPUDIATION   OF  REASON 

In  general,  the  causes  of  minor  morality  and  its  resulting 
ills  are  to  be  found  in  its  constant  repudiation  of  reason. 
Now  that  the  dread  of  rationalism  is  past,  and  we  are  far 
removed  from  the  dogmatism  of  the  Enlightenment,  it  is 
fitting  to  note  how  irrational  the  moral  life  of  man  has  be- 
come. Our  aim  in  tendering  this  criticism  is  not  to  exalt 
the  understanding  to  any  unnatural  position,  but  to  allow 
the  precious  intellect  of  man  to  indicate  for  him  his  position 
in  the  world  and  his  problem  in  life.  Thus  we  invoke 
reason,  not  for  the  sake  of  reason,  which  would  be  like  the 
erroneous  maxim  of  virtue  for  virtue's  sake,  but  because 
reason  is  identified  with  the  inner  nature  of  humanity,  so 
that  any  repudiation  of  intelligence  is  also  a  repudiation  of 
man  himself.  Minor  morality  has  assumed  that  man 
possesses  immediately  all  that  is  necessary  for  worthy  and 
satisfactory  action,  so  that  insight  is  made  unnecessary.  Is 
not  pleasure  an  immediate  sense  and  conscience  an  intuition? 
Why  need  we  assume  that  the  purpose  of  our  action  is  open 
to  discussion?  This  extraordinary  condition  of  affairs 
stands  in  need  of  thorough  correction ;  pleasure  and  pain,  ap- 
proval and  disapproval  are  suggestive  and  influential  forms 
of  sense,  but  not  ground  for  action,  and  our  examination  of 
hedonism  and  intuitionism  has  shown  how  feeling  and  con- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  301 

science  can  only  point  to  something  beyond  themselves, 
which  is  the  indwelling  life  of  humanity.  But  this  inner 
life  does  not  assume  the  form  of  immediate  intelligibility, 
and  minor  morality  is  a  serious  fault  when  it  teaches  us  that 
the  whole  meaning  of  life  and  action  appears  at  once  in  forms 
of  sense. 

It  is  this  anti-intellectualism  that  has  culminated  in  de- 
cadent  morality   and   nihilism,   and   we   are   learning  what 
folly  it  was  to  allow  Hume  and  Kant  to  exalt  conduct  at 
the    expense   of   culture.     Even    before    the    appearance    of 
these  moral  masters,  modern  morality  began  a  course  of  ex- 
periments which  in  England  have  resulted  in  no  philosophy 
of   life,    but    a   series   of    "Methods''    (Sidgwick),    ''Data' 
(Spencer),  "Types''  (Martineau),  "Science"  (Stephen),  ta 
which  list  must  be  added  the  ''Prolegomena"  of  Green.  The 
sense  of  life  is  lost  to  these  writers  who  find  some  phase  of 
the  moral  life  and  seek  at  once  to  raise  it  into  the  scaffolding 
of  a  system.     They  shun  reason.  Green  no  less  than  Stephen, 
and  see  in  life  nothing  but  a  course  of  conduct  made  up  of 
individual  acts  whose  intelligible  character  is  ever  wanting. 
The   modern   no   longer   relates  his  thought  to  the  central 
problem,  but  adapts  and  cramps  it  to  meet  the  exigencies  of 
his  school  or  to  score  a  "victory"  for  its  particular  tenets, 
such    as   autonomy    versus   heteronomy,    and    egoism    versus 
altruism.     He  plays  his  part  as  intuitionist  or  hedonist  and 
never  thinks  to  inquire.  What  is  action?     What  is  the  ap- 
parent purpose  of  life?     Unity  is  lost  in  the  manifold,  reality 
in  appearance.     This  unintelligent  view  of  life  has  witnessed 
the  exaltation  of  the  will  with  the  result  that  a  theory  of 
labor  has  threatened  the  humanity  of  man.     Man  has  been 
reduced  to  mechanism.     Where  the  i8th  century  said  "Man 
is  a  machine",  the  19th  reduced  the  theory  to  practice  and 
suffered    labor    to    dehumanize    the    individual.     Paganism 
with  its  exaltation  of  knowledge,  and  Scholasticism  with  its 
abstractions  were   better  calculated   to  evince   the  sense  of 
humanity  than  this  contemptible  modern  system  which  has 
surrendered  man  to  his  will  and  his  will  to  the  life  of  labor. 
We  are  finding  that  labor  does  not  consist  in  cultivating  the 
garden  of  Eden  but  in  toiling  amid  thorn  and  thistle  by  the 
sweat  of  the  brow.     Now,  such  a  conduct  of  life  is  closely 


302  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

connected  with  the  unreasoning  conduct  of  minor  morality 
where  virtue  has  become  an  excuse  for  ignorance. 

The  usual  contemptus  intellecti  is  set  aside  by  major 
morality  in  the  re-iteration  of  man's  total  nature.  Voluntas 
superior  est  intellectu — such  has  been  the  rash  assumption 
of  the  minor  moralist,  who,  like  the  ever-vacillating  Peer 
Gynt,  is  ready  to  accept  the  Boyg's  counsel  and  "Go  round 
about."  Nevertheless,  life  cannot  be  avoided  and  the  man 
of  the  future  must  face  his  own  intellect  without  shame  or 
fear.  Inwardly  viewed,  man  expresses  a  perpetual  Wunsch 
zur  Wahrheit  and  this  has  been  met  with  defeat  and  disap- 
pointment. The  will-to-know  has  not  been  wholly  absent 
from  the  action  of  sense  of  the  movement  of  the  will,  and 
the  life-force  which  produced  the  Tamas-guna  of  feeling  and 
the  Rajas-guna  of  will  is  no  less  ready  to  bring  man  to  the 
third  estate  where  he  will  exercise  and  enjoy  the  Sattva- 
guna  of  insight.  Classic  contemplation,  which  was  never 
wholly  free  from  sense,  never  perfectly  and  romantic  con- 
quest, which  never  really  had  an  object,  must  yield  to  a 
hitherto  unknown  and  hence  nameless  third  system  where 
ancient  scientia  and  modern  potentia  unite  in  the  active 
contemplation  of  the  world  in  its  totality. 

Exercise  of  the  will  has  made  man  dull  to  the  claims  of 
reality,  for  so  long  as  he  was  energetic  his  fatigue  acted  as 
a  narcotic  and  man  was  content  not  to  know.  It  is  from 
this  "deadly  doing"  that  the  major  morality  seeks  to  free 
man,  and  the  resulting  emancipation  may  be  thoroughly  ap- 
preciated in  a  country  like  our  own  where  a  debauchery  of 
action  has  made  us  stupid  toward  the  possibilities  of  a  con- 
templative life.  We  have  cultivated  the  garden,  but  have 
not  found  the  tree  of  knowledge ;  we  have  willed  the  homo 
faciens  who  now  rules  the  earth,  which  needs  not  only  the 
worker  but  the  thinker,  the  homo  sapiens  who  shall  con- 
template it.  Where  do  we  find  faith  in  reason's  triumph 
over  sense,  which  is  fundamental  to  major  morality?  Most 
eminently  in  Schopenhauer  where  it  is  least  to  be  expected. 
Our  objection  to  this  practical  view  of  things  is  a  psycho- 
logical scruple  in  view  of  the  will's  inability  to  contain  and 
to  express  humanity.  Intellect,  not  will,  is  what  distinguishes 
man  from  the  brute,  is  what  at  last  separates  man  from  the 


1 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  303 

world  of  nature;  so  that  he  who  contemplates  and  thus 
obtains  a  clear  mirror  of  the  universe  in  both  nature  and 
humanity  is  the  one  who  has  found  the  purpose  of  his  life, 
while  he  who  simply  acts  and  entertains  only  such  a  quantity 
and  such  a  form  of  knowledge  as  shall  further  action,  has 
but  a  dim  comprehension  of  the  essence  of  his  being  in  its 
moral  vocation.  Hence  the  pragmatic  hero  is  only  a  fine 
specimen  of  animality  whose  intellectual  powers,  not  raised 
to  the  rank  of  pure  cognition,  serve  only  to  quicken  his  in- 
stincts into  smoother  and  surer  forms  of  action.  He  is 
only  another  variation  of  the  "blond-beast"  whose  "blue- 
eyedness"  makes  him  keen  in  the  realization  that  knowledge 
is  pleasure  and  power,  but  not  value  and  dignity;  every  step 
taken  in  the  direction  of  pragmatism  is  a  step  away  from 
genius  which  lies  beyond  life,  that  in  its  remote  position  it 
may  more  perfectly  reproduce  it.  Action  can  never  be  the 
final  consideration  in  an  existence  like  man's  where  an  inner 
life  ever  awaits  redemption  through  thought  and  contempla- 
tion;  for  action  is  only  a  means  to  an  end  and  we  perform 
deeds  to  demonstrate  truth,  and  turn  all  our  activities  into 
experiment.  Let  nature  with  its  infinite  powers  do  the 
work,  let  man  so  weak  in  will  but  vast  in  mind  do  the  think- 
ing: then  the  purf)ose  of  the  world-whole  in  naturistic  and 
humanistic  forms  shall  be  accomplished.  Certain  it  is  that 
there  is  no  safety  for  man  in  relinquishing  his  hold  upon  the 
intellectual  in  the  blind  manner  of  a  pragmatic  philosophy. 

5. — THE   MORALITY  OF   MAXIMS 

Both  forms  of  minor  morality  seek  to  approach  the  **frce 
moral  agent"  by  means  of  maxims.  When  we  turn  away 
from  maxims  to  ideals,  we  are  not  repudiating  conscience 
and  rectitude  but  are  simply  protecting  major  morality  from 
all  forms  of  partial  conduct.  The  hedonist  as  well  as  the 
intuitionist  has  presumed  to  legislate  for  man,  and  the  same 
imperative  of  conduct  appears  first  in  a  hypothetical  and  then 
in  a  categorical  form;  here  it  is  urged  for  the  sake  of  con- 
sequences, there  in  view  of  ethics  itself.  To  act  for  the 
greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number,  or  so  that  the 
maxim  of  one's  conduct  may  be  fit  to  become  universal  law, 


304  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

Is  to  be  a  moral  agent  but  not  a  man,  and  nothing  but  prac- 
tical expediency  can  account  for  the  development  of  such 
maxims.  Life,  when  thus  interpreted,  and  its  chords  struck 
in  a  minor  key,  becomes  a  system  of  labor,  not  for  the  sake 
of  an  ideal  which  naturally  attracts,  but  in  obedience  to  a 
maxim  without  purpose.  Such  morality  of  the  maxim  is 
also  forbidding  and  acts  almost  altogether  in  a  negative 
fashion;  certain  it  is  that  it  cannot  account  for  man  and  his 
human  progress. 

When  one  seeks  to  exchange  maxims  for  ideals  it  may 
be  seen  that  he  is  introducing  the  cavalier  into  his  system  of 
major  morality.  Now  this  is  true  in  a  limited  sense  only, 
and  yet  we  have  no  desire  to  uphold  the  smug  hero  of  minor 
morality  who  cannot  act  with  rules.  Take  the  whole  evolu- 
tionary system  and  see  what  little  inspiration  it  brings  to 
the  man  who  himself  desires  to  live  nobly  and  victoriously. 
Some  explanation  of  barbarism  in  ethics  may  be  forthcoming 
from  such  systems,  or  some  attempted  justification  of  the 
manufactured  hero  of  an  industrial  age  like  ours ;  but  evolu- 
tionary ethics  is  no  more  ideal  than  a  financial  company 
which  systematically  goes  bond  for  the  honesty  of  some 
would-be  clerk.  The  moralist  seeks  to  legislate  for  others 
who  are  like  Plato's  workers  and  warriors,  but  he  refuses  to 
be  bound  by  his  own  rules,  inasmuch  as  they  have  no  such 
merit  as  the  wisdom-virtues  of  Plato's  philosophers.  No 
wonder  that  Nietzsche  sees  in  traditional  ethics  nothing  but 
"slave  morality"  whose  goodness  is  weakness.  An  ethical 
system  should  thus  convert  its  author  first,  as  Buddha  became 
his  own  disciple  and  Kant  lived  the  categorical  imperative. 
But  the  hedonist  transcends  hedonism  as  the  intuitionist  often 
rises  above  conscience.  If  the  thinker  cannot  live  his  own 
theory,  he  has  been  giving,  not  a  justification  of  morality, 
but  an  explanation  only. 

The  Idea  of  cavalier-ethics  with  Its  morality  minus 
maxims  should  have  only  a  spiritual  interpretation.  Of 
course,  one  cannot  help  thinking  of  Nietzsche's  "blond  beast", 
yet  this  ideal  of  violence  is  the  very  opposite  of  the  cavalier 
who  represents  the  refining  influence  of  humanity  instead  of 
vulgar  physical  self-assertion.  Nietzsche's  original  tribute 
to  Apollo  as  the  ideal  of  contemplation  is  more  in  accord 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  305 

with  the  cavalier  of  major  morality  than  the  willful  charac- 
ter later  idealized  in  the  form  of  Dionysius.  Indeed,  it  is 
not  at  all  impossible  to  elaborate  the  character  of  the  cavalier- 
moralist  so  that  he  shall  be  Christian  rather  than  pagan,  an 
ideal  of  romantic  rather  than  of  classic  culture.  One  could 
style  him  Petrach  or  Tasso,  Schiller  or  Corot,according  as  he 
sought  him  in  the  earlier  or  later  Renaissance,  and  could  find 
in  him  the  genial  triumph  of  reason  over  sense.  Maxim- 
morality  makes  man  prudential  and  worldly-wise  and  in  the 
most  unimaginative  fashion  he  peruses  the  mechanical  rules 
of  a  petrified  social  system ;  to  him  it  means  life  without  in- 
spiration or  coloring  in  a  world  which  gives  him  no  informa* 
tion  concerning  his  ethical  place  or  moral  problem. 

The  mental  blindness  of  minor  morality  appears  again  in 
our  distrust  of  human  feeling;  hence  beauty  has  suffered  at 
the  hands  of  truth.  In  the  instance  of  aesthetics,  it  can  be 
shown  how  both  antique  and  modern  reasoners  distrusted  the 
graces  so  rigorously  that  no  consistent  doctrine  of  beauty  was 
tolerated.  The  ancient  who  lived  and  wrought  in  the  at- 
mosphere of  sweetness  and  light,  could  not  comprehend  the 
supreme  value  of  his  work.  As  the  age  of  Plato  comes  the 
age  of  Pericles  goes,  and  art  gives  way  before  aesthetics.  But 
alas!  the  metaphysical  and  moral  prejudice  was  so  great 
that  the  speculative  could  only  regard  art  as  vibrating 
between  the  poles  of  imitation  and  utility;  hence  it  was  that 
the  metaphysical  Heraclitus  said,  "Homer  ought  to  be 
whipped",  while  the  moralistic  Plato  condemns,  not  only  the 
ancient  bard,  but  all  forms  of  poetic  and  dramatic  enter- 
tainment. For  such  an  attitude  the  argument  is  that  these 
things  are  unreal  and  unnecessary.  Aristotle  seems  more 
tolerant  than  his  predecessors,  but  his  theory  of  art  is 
overwrought  with  moralistic  intentions.  Art,  like  thfe 
drama,  exists  that  it  may  exercise  the  function  of  kath- 
arsis,  by  means  of  which  the  representation  of  such  passions 
as  fear  and  anger  tends  to  cleanse  the  soul  of  them,  through 
an  artistic  process  which  is  itself  pleasant.  Even  Plotinus, 
who  was  ashamed  of  his  body  and  would  not  indulge  the 
thought  of  his  corporeality  by  celebrating  his  birthday,  saw 
how  symbolic  and  aesthetic  art  could  be,  and  it  was  he  who 
originated  the  argument  which  led  to  "Pleasure  without  in- 


3o6  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

terest"  and  ''Uart  pour  I'art!' 

Our  moderns  have  been  lacking  in  straightforwardness 
in  their  attitude  toward  the  fine  arts.  Winckelmann  and 
Lessing  shun  responsibility  in  their  return  to  classicism; 
Burke  and  Baumgarten  institute  psychological  aesthetics  and 
perhaps  may  be  excused  for  failing  to  place  the  beautiful 
upon  a  sufficient  foundation.  Kant  and  Schopenhauer  re- 
veal the  moralistic  warping  which  hampered  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle. It  is  the  feeling  of  "disinterested  pleasure",  or  it  is 
"will-less  contemplation"  which  Kant  and  Schopenhauer  ad- 
vance in  the  interests  of  art,  but  their  inner  motive  seems  to 
be  rigoristic.  Art  is  to  stupify  man;  aesthetics  become 
anaesthetics.  Both  of  these  writers  abandon  the  artistic 
ideal  for  the  moralistic  one.  Kant  uses  aesthetics  as  the 
culmination  of  ethics  and  sees  in  the  beautiful  only  another 
way  of  restraining  man ;  Schopenhauer  advances  the  aestheti- 
cal  first  as  preparation  for  the  severities  of  the  moral  life, 
for  where  one  has  learned  to  contemplate  apart  from  willing, 
he  can  be  taught  to  negate  the  will-to-live  entirely.  Both 
distrust  life  and  employ  beauty,  not  in  the  form  of  culture, 
but  as  restraint;  meanwhile  they  tend  to  classify  aesthetics 
as  a  practical,  when  it  is  probably  a  speculative,  discipline 
Schiller's  emancipation  was  never  complete,  for  his  theory 
of  aesthetical  education  was  so  conceived  as  to  require  first  a 
sensuous,  then  an  artistic,  and  finally  an  ethical  period  in 
human  history.  But  here  beauty  is  swallowed  up  in  virtue, 
as  pleasure  was  absorbed  in  beauty,  and  the  unity  of  life  is 
broken  upon  the  wheel  of  moralism. 

6. — THE   CATEGORIES   OF    MAJOR    MORALITY 

The  minor  morality  of  the  schools  could  not  exclude 
that  major  sense  of  living  peculiar  to  humanity  as  an  inner 
totality.  Hence,  where  hedonism  rose  to  eudaemonism,  and 
intuitionism  deepened  into  rigorism,  the  minor  forms  of 
ethics  proposed  the  question  whether  life  has  value  and  man 
dignity.  Now  value  and  dignity  are  the  categories  which 
seem  to  explain  all  the  ideals  of  humanity  in  its  position  mid- 
way between  nature  and  spirit.  What  man  receives  from 
nature  in  the  way  of  pleasure  and  desire,  utility  and  well- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  307 

being,  convinces  him  that  life  has  value ;  while  the  way  that 
he  reacts  upon  nature  according  to  conscience  and  rectitude, 
freedom  and  duty,  reveals  the  inner  dignity  of  his  moral 
nature.  Under  the  auspices  of  naturistic  and  characteristic 
ethics,  these  two  forms  of  moral  thinking  were  considered 
only  indirectly  and  by  way  of  implication ;  for  the  course  of 
the  argument  showed  how  man  transcends  both  pleasure  and 
happiness  in  his  search  for  value,  just  as  his  submission  to 
rectitude  and  duty  was  undergone  for  the  sake  of  his  in- 
herent dignity.  With  humanism  these  categories  appear  to 
be  independent  of  pleasure  and  pain,  approval  and  disap- 
proval. 

In  the  midst  of  the  inadequacies  of  minor  morality  there 
persisted  a  sense  of  humanity,  making  possible  the  develop- 
ment of  a  major  view  in  keeping  with  the  nature  and  needs 
of  our  spiritual   life.     To  avail  ourselves  of  this  valuable 
result  we  must  react  upon  our  inner  experience  and  resolve 
humanity  into  appropriate  categories;  only  in  this  way  can 
genuine  ethics  be  made   possible.     Every  characteristic  age 
will  have  its  moral  categories  according  to  which  its  ideals 
and  strivings  will  find  philosophic  expression.     In  its  history, 
ethics  seems  to  have  made  use  of  some  four  categories  to  ac^ 
count    for    its   sentiments.     With    its    plastic    methods   and 
formalistic  views,  antiquity  perfected  the  categories  of  the 
good  and  virtue.     Modernity,  saturated  with  physical  ideas 
and  dynamic  norms,  has  expressed  its  view  of  life  in  terms 
of  mathematical  rectitude  and  energistic  duty.     These  con- 
cern the  essential  form  of  the  moral  life  whose  content  was 
expressed  by  naturism  according  to  the  general  principle  of 
pleasure,  desire,  sympathy,  benevolence  and  the  like,  called 
good  and  virtuous,  right  and  dutiful,  as  the  ethical  argument 
seemed  to  demand.     Or  stated  in  terms  of  modern  theories 
alone,  naturism  tended  to  emphasize  well-being  in  the  form 
of  the  good,  vi'hile  characteristic  ethics,  having  no  faith  in  a 
fixed    and    finished    theory   of    this    sort,    resorted    to    duty. 
Where  one  theory  sought  to  receive,  the  other  aspired  to 
give.     From    the   standpoint   of   a   full   humanity,    it   seems 
necessary  to  employ  categories  which  are  neither  so  naively 
attached  to  the  world  of  immediacy  nor  drawn  out  of  it  so 
abruptly  as  these  opposed  methods  seem  to  imply.     Three 


3o8  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

categories  may  be  found  in  value  and  dignity,  which  are  at- 
tributes of  our  humanity  and  products  of  its  incessant  striv- 
ing. Value  is  something  internal,  thus  fulfilling  the  idea 
of  inness,  and  offering  analogy  to  the  categories  of  good  and 
rectitude;  while  dignity  arises  in  response  to  the  totality  of 
human  life  and  takes  its  place  beside  virtue  and  duty.  Our 
historical  sympathies  are  such  that  we  feel  disinclined  to  de- 
part abruptly  from  these  other  ideals  that  have  served  man 
so  faithfully  thus  far ;  yet  no  conservatism  should  forbid  the 
introduction  of  new  ideals  fitted  to  express  and  explain  the 
sense  of  human  striving  in  the  world. 

The  consideration  of  humanity  in  the  light  of  these  two 
categories  will  determine  the  method  and  secure  it  against 
insufficiency  at  the  same  time  the  acquired  notions  of  ethical 
philosophy  will  come  in  for  reconstruction.     First  in  order, 
the  category  of  value  must  be  set  oE  in  clear  outline,  which 
can  be  done  only  by  viewing  it  as  a  psychological  fact,  like 
pleasure,  as  well  as  an  ethical  ideal,  like  rectitude.     From 
this  sense  of  inherent  value  attaching  to  the  human  soul  will 
follow  the  ideal  of  life's  dignity  in  a  world  of  human  values. 
Man  is  no  longer  the  creature  of  desire  or  the  child  of  duty ; 
he  is  the  man  of  dignity  whose  life  is  to  be  lived  inwardly  in 
the  light  of  its  worth,  outwardly  as  the  expression  of  human- 
ity.    The  study  of  human  values  should  relieve  our  philoso- 
phy of  those  inner  paradoxes  that  beset  the  schemes  of  nature 
and  character,  just  as  the  study  of  man  in  his  dignity  rnay 
be  expected  to  relieve  us  from  casuistry  as  the  unity  of  ethical 
striving  is  contemplated.     To   feel  the  full   force  of   these 
categories  something  more  than  the  conventional  significance 
attaching  to  their  names  must  be  appreciated ;  value  indicates 
the  whole   inner   nature   of   man   surveyed   ethically,   while 
dignity   expresses   the    peculiar   humanity   of   his   character. 
When  he  feels  the  influence  of  the  ethical  ideal  it  is  as  a 
sense  of  value  and  when  he  assumes  an  appropriate  attitude 
toward  it  he  receives  the  mark  of  moral  dignity. 


II 


THE  CATEGORY  OF  VALUE 


I. — ^THE  ACTUALITY  OF  VALUE 


To  raise  value  to  the  rank  of  the  categorical  thinking 
some  dialectical  labor  must  be  expended  to  show  how  the 
mind,  in  its  search  for  fundamentals  in  humanity,  may  repose 
in  the  idea  of  something  valuable  just  as  well  as  in  that  of 
something  good  or  right.  All  our  thinking  upon  the  pheno- 
mena of  nature  seems  incomplete  until  we  have  secured  such 
mental  principles  as  reality  and  causality  whose  metaphysical 
strength  is  such  as  to  identify  them  with  the  ground  of  the 
world.  The  mind  takes  notice  of  color  and  tone,  of  matter 
and  motion,  but  it  cannot  rest  until  something  more  remote 
and  enduring  is  found.  As  with  nature,  so  with  humanity; 
inner  experience  presents  many  an  interesting  quality  of 
mind,  as  pleasure  and  pain,  desire  and  aversion,  but  the 
essence  of  our  inner  being  seems  to  reside  in  some  sense  of 
the  good  or  value,  wherein  the  goal  of  all  life  may  be  found. 
Where  categories  are  universal  and  necessary,  they  must  also 
appeal  to  the  mind  by  giving  a  sense  of  satisfaction  unknown 
among  the  other  elements  of  our  experience.  The  idea  of 
value  seems  able  to  do  this  because  it  has  a  range  extending 
beyond  mere  feeling,  as  also  a  depth  which  suffers  it  to 
remain  in  the  mind  when  by  abstraction  other  principles  have 
been  removed.  To  speak  of  the  reality  of  the  world  is  suffi- 
cient to  satisfy  metaphysics,  and  to  discuss  the  worth  of  life 
should  be  enough  for  morality. 

Since  the  philosophic  standing  of  value  seems  to  be  such 
as  to  justify  its  categorical  treatment,  w^e  may  begin  to  make 
this  attempt  by  contrasting  the  idea  of  worth  with  the  ancient 
notion  of  good  and  the  modern  idea  of  duty.  These  two 
comparisons  may  best  be  carried  on  simultaneously,  inasmuch 
as  the  idea  of  value  seems  to  participate  in  both  the  static 

300 


3IO  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

principle  of  a  complete  good  and  the  dynamic  one  of  con- 
tinuous duty,  just  as  it  stands  midway  between  objective 
virtue  and  subjective  rectitude.  Both  of  these  views  fail 
to  point  out  the  value  of  life  and  the  sense  of  human  striv- 
ing, and  where  one  presents  a  superb  picture  of  the  ethical 
order  and  the  other  reveals  the  superiority  of  man's  moral 
nature,  neither  shows  how  the  individual  may  enter  the 
world  to  which  he  belongs.  The  ancient  notion  of  good 
was  aesthetical  where  the  modern  idea  of  duty  is  dynamical, 
and  the  difference  between  the  two  is  the  inner  sense  of  the 
contrast  between  art  and  science.  Where  the  first  school 
saw  no  reason  to  conceal  its  artistic  view  of  life,  the  second 
one  imitates  science  and  exalts  the  mathematical  order  o^ 
rightness  as  well  as  the  mechanical  law  of  something  bind- 
ing. Our  modern  intuitions  of  rectitude  and  laws  of  duty 
are  subordinated  to  physical  science ;  the  iron  has  entered  our 
soul.  In  the  midst  of  these  plastic  and  mechanical  notions 
humanity  with  its  worth  is  lost  sight  of,  and  the  call  of  man 
to  realize  the  value  of  his  life  is  ignored. 

The  ancient  idea  of  the  good  was  pursued  with  the 
feeling  that  man  was  at  one  with  the  world  as  also  with 
himself,  so  that  there  prevailed  physical  and  political  unity 
between  nature  and  humanity.  Plato's  ideal  Republic,  with 
its  characteristic  division  running  through  cosmos  and 
microcosmos,  and  organizing  the  virtues  and  the  classes  of 
men,  shows  how  perfect  the  conviction  of  this  harmony  could 
be.  All  that  was  needed  was  a  certain  amount  of  insight  and 
a  moderate  degree  of  activity  to  efiect  the  immediate  realiza- 
tion of  the  good  in  the  realm  of  immanent  moral  reality. 
The  good  exists  in  the  world  while  virtue  is  implicit  in  main; 
thus  reasoned  the  ancient  in  his  Hellenic  calm  which,  with 
Stoicism,  deepened  into  resignation.  No  sense  of  compunc- 
tion or  feeling  of  doubt  disturbed  the  mind  of  the  ancient 
in  his  ideal  possession  of  the  good ;  no  hint  of  obligation  nor 
suggestion  of  struggle  to  attain  to  virtue  daunted  his  moral 
ambition.  The  eudaemonism  of  antiquity  was  carried  on  in 
the  same  easy  spirit  that  had  identified  man  with  virtue ;  and 
now  it  was  suggested  that  virtue  and  happiness  were  one 
The  good  was  looked  upon  as  a  category  capable  of  contain- 
ing in   undisturbed   unity  our   modern   principles   of   dcsirr 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  311 

and  duty. 

Such  a  view  of  life  may  easily  be  seen  to  indulge  too 
heartily  in  optimism,  for  the  world  is  not  likely  to  yield  such 
satisfaction  as  the  ideal  of  eudaemonia  promises,  nor  is  man 
so  prepared  for  life  that  he  will  surrender  to  the  ideal  with- 
out a  struggle.  A  modern  would  further  criticise  life  ac- 
cording to  the  good  as  somewhat  wanting  in  heroism,  inas- 
much as  the  classic  moralist  attempted  nothing  extraordinary 
in  the  way  of  ethical  striving,  and  never  sank  deep  enough 
into  the  ab}'ss  of  his  human  consciousness  to  feel  the  bitter- 
ness that  may  be  found  in  man's  being.  Life  must  be  con- 
ceived of  according  to  unity,  and  the  very  category  of  value, 
now  being  introduced  into  the  view  of  human  life  has  no 
other  purpose  than  that  of  reconciling  the  manifold  of 
human  impulses  to  the  central  striving  of  his  inner  nature ; 
but  the  classic  conception  of  the  good  makes  the  world  too 
fixed  and  life  too  finished  for  the  realization  of  any  such 
inner  harmony.  The  good  was  likewise  too  intellectual  to 
explain  man  in  his  striving  or  to  content  him  in  the  active 
pursuit  of  his  goal  in  the  remote  world  of  humanity.  Al- 
ready we  have  seen  how  the  ancient  eudaemonism  of  Aris- 
totle refused  to  surrender  the  ideal  that  man  was  in  posses- 
sion of  the  good,  just  as  it  ever  limited  human  activity  to  the 
energy  of  contemplation.  Now  the  question  concerning  the 
worth  of  life  is  too  profound  to  suffer  the  thought  that  man 
without  conquest  may  participate  in  the  supreme  good  of  all 
human  being. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  regulative  principle  of  value  is 
of  service  in  correcting  the  opposite  error  indulged  by  the 
restless  moralism  of  modern  times.  Where  ancient  ethics 
was  wanting  in  beginning,  modern  morality  has  no  idea  ot 
the  end  that  belongs  to  our  striving  after  being.  Conscience 
and  rectitude,  freedom  and  duty,  are  ethical  ideals  calculated 
to  make  man  eternally  restless,  and  the  spirit  which  put  them 
forth  is  no  less  active  in  sundering  man  from  the  world  and 
setting  him  at  variance  with  his  humanity.  Conscience  robs 
him  of  his  peace  of  mind,  and  the  right  appeals  to  him  as 
something  to  be  wrought  out  only  after  infinite  struggle; 
freedom  separates  him  from  nature  and  puts  him  in  bondage 
to  the  categorical  imperative.     Happiness  is  removed  from 


312  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

any  immediate  consideration  by  a  rigoristic  system  that  looks 
upon  desire  as  something  unethical;  where  final  blessedness 
is  brought  into  the  calculation  it  is  rendered  so  remote  that 
man  finds  no  real  way  of  participating  in  its  benefits.  Vast 
problems  must  be  solved  by  man  in  the  conflict  between 
freedom  and  fate;  heavy  burdens  are  laid  upon  him  m  pur- 
suit of  his  duty.  Goodness  no  longer  consists  in  being,  but 
in  doing,  or  as  the  opening  sentence  of  Kant's  "Metaphysic 
of  Morals"  expressed  it,  "Nothing  can  be  possibly  conceived 
in  the  world,  or  even  out  of  it,  which  can  be  called  good 
without  qualification,  except  a  good  wilL" 

Where  ancient  ethics  with  its  fixed  notion  of  the  good 
was  lacking  in  moral  energy,  the  modern  system  reveals  a 
painful  want  of  goal.  Conscience  makes  us  sensitive  and 
calls  forth  an  excess  of  moral  power  for  either  negation  or 
affirmation.  Rectitude  acts  as  an  ideal  to  keep  our  minds 
bent  upon  the  moral  purpose  of  our  lives.  Freedom  and 
duty  are  even  more  powerful  in  influencing  the  striving 
activities  of  the  ethical  subject.  Yet  our  modern  ethics  can- 
not tell  us  what  all  this  is  for.  The  only  apparent  aim  m 
ethics  seems  to  consist  in  setting  all  our  faculties  in  motion, 
that  they  may  function  perfectly  and  urge  man  to  act  ac- 
cording to  the  right  method.  But  in  all  this,  right  is  only 
an  attitude  and  duty  an  initiative.  V^hat  such  conduct 
needs  is  a  sense  of  its  own  service  in  human  life,  but  the  onc- 
sidedness  of  intultlonism  has  made  this  Impossible ;  and  even 
if  it  had  been  permitted  to  invest  moral  life  with  some  con- 
tent, the  opposing  theory  of  hedonism  would  have  had  no 
suitable  suggestion  to  make.  Our  ethical  philosophy  has 
been  resultless,  and  where  the  ancient  perceived  no  real 
ethical  problem,  modern  thought  has  been  all  problem  and 
no  solution. 

2 THE     CONCEPTUAL     NATURE     OF     VALUE — VALUE     AND 

PROGRESS 

The  principle  of  value,  as  a  moral  category,  seems  to 
make  up  for  the  deficiencies  of  both  these  views.  Our 
moderns  have  made  ethical  Ideals  to  consist  in  something 
inner   and   individual,   and   thereby   sacrificed     the    antique 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  313 

principles  of  the  permanent  and  universal;  they  fled  to  a 
realm  of  subjectivity,  which  made  ethical  principles  lose  all 
practical  significance.  Now  the  category  of  value  seems  to 
contain  both  of  the  essentials  of  these  two  periods  combined 
in  such  a  manner  that  nothing  really  necessary  is  lost.  On 
the  objective  side,  value  represents  something  which  indi- 
cates a  possibility  if  not  an  actuality,  like  the  good ;  at  the 
same  time  it  has  an  inner  character,  like  the  modern  ideal 
of  rectitude.  To  indicate  how  a  half-real  principle  may  also 
stand  out  as  an  ethical  norm  dependent  upon  the  will  for  its 
existence,  we  may  speak  of  value  as  a  realization  rather  than 
a  given  reality,  like  substance,  quality,  or  quantity.  Apart 
from  the  energizing  will,  value  is  nothing,  yet  when  the 
will  works  according  to  the  ethical  ideal.  Instead  of  merelv 
functioning  according  to  rectitude,  it  creates  something  which 
theieby  becomes  real ;  namely,  a  principle  of  worth.  Where 
ancient  thought  partook  of  realism,  modern  morality  has 
ever  been  nominallstic,  with  ideals  that  stood  for  names  or 
thoughts.  The  nature  of  value  is  best  undertsood  in  the 
conceptual  philosophy  of  Aristotle  and  Abelard,  for  it  com- 
bines the  universal  good  with  the  individual  act  of  rectitude 
according  to  a  principle  of  worth.  Thus  we  may  speak  of 
the  value  of  life  as  something  both  real  and  ideal,  while 
neither  the  good  nor  duty  is  capable  of  assuming  such  an 
ontological  form. 

The  conceptual  nature  of  value  appears  again  when  the 
classic  spirit  of  complacency  is  contrasted  with  the  romantic 
striving  of  our  modern  life.  Ancient  life  according  to  the 
good  found  expression  In  more  than  one  form  of  culture,  but 
each  conveyed  the  same  lesson :  man  is  at  home  in  the  world 
and  at  one  with  himself.  The  physical  view  of  man  was 
such  as  to  advance  the  conviction  that  the  elements  of  the 
world  repeated  themselves  in  the  constitution,  when  Prota- 
goras was  able  to  make  man  the  measure  of  all  things  in 
their  being  and  not-being,  while  Plato  found  in  the  cosmos 
the  body-soul-mind  division  that  immediately  reappeared  in 
the  appetite-desire-reason  elements  of  the  microcosmos.  With 
this  physical  form  of  unity  there  came  also  the  feeling  that 
man  was  one  with  his  political  environment,  whereby  Plato's 
classes  of   men   correspond   to   the   divisions  of  nature   and 


314  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

humanity.  In  all  this,  the  metaphysical  and  metapolitlcal 
independence  of  man  was  not  entertained  and  no  profound 
sense  of  striving  was  evoked  within  him.  Art  likewise 
caught  the  spirit  of  complacency;  indeed,  it  may  have  been 
the  plastic  intuitions  of  Hellenism  which  persuaded  the 
ancient  to  accept  the  universe  and  take  life  as  he  found  it. 
Hellenic  calm  is  proverbial  and  we  need  only  glance  back- 
ward at  these  monuments  of  epic  and  plastic  art  to  notice 
the  contrast  between  their  composure  and  our  own  restless- 
ness. Their  ethics  also  reveals  this  same  spirit  as  modera- 
tion and  resignation,  and  even  the  Stoical  sense  of  duty 
aroused  just  enough  activity  to  bring  man  to  ataraxy. 

Modern   romantic  ethics  lives   in   no   such   fixed   world 
of  being  or  finished  life  of  art;  its  life  is  a  perpetual  crusade 
for   the   ideal,   while   its  activities   forever   arise   within   the 
self-conscious  soul.     The  only  palpable  aim  is  styled  happi- 
ness or  perfection  and  yet  neither  hedonist  nor  intuitionist 
can  tell  us  wherein  the  essence  of  these  ideals  is  to  be  found. 
Life  is  made  disciplinary,   not  creative;  or,   in  a  word,   its 
values  are  never  employed  to  stimulate  moral  action  or  direct 
its  course.     Our  voluntarism  is  as  far  from  the  moral  ideal 
as  was  ancient  intellectualism,  and  our  romantic  striving  for 
we  know  not  what  leads  nowhere.     The  prime  need  in  such 
a  condition  of  affairs  is  a  sense  of  worth  which  accompanies 
an  action  from  beginning  to  end.     We  cannot  assume  that 
the  good  exists  as   intuited   by  the   intellectual   reason,   nor 
dare  we  assert  that  its  being  depends  upon  the  will  of  man; 
we   are    nearer    the    heart   of    the   matter    when   wc    act   as 
though  there  were  a  possible  value  which  could  be  realized 
by  conscientious  effort  on  the  part  of  the  moral  subject.  This 
value  initiates  action  as  effectually  as  any  sense  of  duty,  for 
it  appeals  to  the  ethical  interest  of  man ;  at  the  sarne  time  it 
stands  out  as  prominently  as  the  good  in  the  capacity  of  the 
goal  of  our  moral  striving.     With  such  an  interest  as  inheres 
in  this  worth  of  our  life  we  have  therefore  an  ideal  capable 
of  presiding  over  the  totality  of  our  ethical  striving. 

The  philosophy  of  eudaemonism,  as  discussed  in  PART 
THREE,  brings  us  face  to  face  with  this  very  contrast 
between  two  views  of  the  end  of  life.  With  a  common  faith  in 
immediacy  ancient  and  modern  thought  found  it  necessary  to 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  315 

follow  distinct  methods  of  treating  this,  inasmuch  as  one  found 
man's  well-being  to  consist  in  the  possession  of  the  desired 
object,  while  the  other  emphasized  only  the  pursuit  of  it. 
Value,  which  is  both  real  and  ideal,  immediate  and  ultimate  in 
human  life,  reconciles  these  extremes  of  classicism  and  roman- 
ticism, by  surveying  the  end  of  life  as  something  neither 
under  nor  yet  beyond  our  control.  We  may  have  it  and  yet 
must  strive  after  it ;  in  itself  it  exists  but  in  no  such  seclusion 
that  it  may  not  be  possessed  by  man.  Where  one  concep- 
tion makes  happiness  to  consist  in  mere  having,  the  other 
looks  upon  it  as  sheer  seeking,  the  valuational  view  con- 
siders the  end  of  our  being  to  consist  in  seeking  what  may  be 
possessed,  in  searching  for  what  may  be  found.  The 
Trouvere,  or  finder,  thus  represents  a  phase  of  culture  un- 
known in  either  antiquity  or  modernity,  while  he  indicates 
the  fact  that  man's  well-being  consists  in  a  constant  search 
for  something  realizable. 

Such  a  metaphysical  condition  of  things  is  explicable  only 
in  the  light  of  a  humanity  which  is  somewhere  between 
nature  and  spirit  in  its  progress  toward  self-realization.  To 
nrian  in  his  humanity  the  good  cannot  be  attributed  in  any 
sincere  fashion,  for  that  would  raise  him  to  the  rank  of 
Deity.  Nevertheless,  this  same  idea  of  a  perfect  condition 
both  in  conduct  and  enjoyment  cannot  be  separated  from 
him,  but  must  be  related  to  his  being  as  an  inevitable  tend- 
ency. The  conditions  of  human  realization  however,  are 
not  met  by  the  contrary  theory  that  finds  our  well-being 
and  perfection  to  consist  in  mere  striving  according  to  some 
law  of  duty,  for  this  would  account  for  only  one  phase  of 
humanity.  In  nature  and  yet  beyond  its  borders,  man  is 
also  in  a  world  of  spirit  that  is  also  above  him;  his  metaphy- 
sical position  is  thus  an  ambiguous  one  so  that  neither  an 
ideal  of  a  fixed  good  nor  that  of  an  indeterminate  duty  can 
satisfy  the  conditions  of  his  nature.  For  this  reason,  we 
survey  humanity  from  the  standpoint  of  value  and  regard 
this  idea  as  indicative  of  a  good  that  settles  upon  man 
gradually  as  his  spirit  advances  toward  its  goal;  and  among 
the  categories  of  morality  only  the  principle  of  value  seems 
to  possess  the  ontogenetic  character  that  is  necessary  in  any 
consistent  view  of  onward  striving  and  inward  living. 


3i6  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

The  foregoing  dialetic  of  value  so  interprets  the  category 
that  the  static  of  the  good  unites  with  the  dynamic  in  duty 
to  form  a  principle  of  ethical  becoming.  Upon  this  basis  we 
may  strengthen  the  claims  of  value  still  further  by  pointing 
out  how  this  category  makes  it  possible  to  preserve  the  moral 
ideal  in  the  midst  of  progress:  indeed,  instead  of  saying  that 
the  ethical  norm  is  valid  in  spite  of  apparent  progress,  wc 
may  assert  that  it  obtains  by  means  of  progress.  For  what 
is  to  be  true  of  humanity  as  such  must  participate  in  the 
progress  that  constitutes  the  essence  of  the  human  order.  In 
both  art  and  religion,  this  ideal  of  an  ever-unfolding  value 
assumes  a  definite  and  positive  form.  Upon  the  three 
different  stages  of  his  existence  man  may  be  said  to  possess 
characteristic  goods  or  to  pursue  appropriate  duties,  but  be- 
hind these  forms  of  the  moral  ideal  seems  to  lurk  a  deeper 
sense  which  expresses  itself  in  these  other  two  forms:  hence 
it  seems  more  consistent  to  view  the  development  of  man's 
inner  'vorld  by  regarding  it  in  the  light  of  an  increasing  sense 
of  worth  as  man's  self-realization  goes  on. 

When  this  general  principle  of  progress  is  applied  to 
the  terms  of  systematic  ethics  the  varieties  of  the  moral  norm 
are  so  few  that  the  idea  of  change  involves  no  inherent  con- 
tradiction. Man  as  we  know  him  belongs  to  nature  and 
spirit,  hence  wc  find  in  his  consciousness  a  commingling  of 
desire  and  duty,  in  which  may  be  recognized,  however,  the 
same  attempt  at  human  self-affirmation  and  the  realization 
of  spiritual  life.  Even  when  man  is  upon  the  low  plane  of 
nature-life  his  pursuit  of  the  concrete  in  feeling  is  none  the 
less  an  attempt  to  realize  value,  while  upon  the  highest 
known  plane  of  civilization  the  abstract  ideals  of  life  have 
no  other  explanation.  It  is  the  same  ideal  of  human  value 
that  man  seeks  first  in  sense,  then  in  reason,  first  in  pleasure, 
then  in  virtue.  For  the  pleasure  of  man  is  not  as  the  pleas- 
ure of  an  animal  nor  his  virtue  that  of  an  angel.  Hence 
the  whole  plan  of  moral  life  presenting  varieties  of  the  moral 
ideal  is  only  a  consistent  scheme  of  values  exhibited  by  the 
one  humanity  as  it  passes  through  the  stages  of  nature,  law 
and  freedom.  Where  pure  hedonism  needs  no  principle  of 
progress,  where  intuitionism  can  admit  none,  humanism  can 
express  itself  in  no  other  way. 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  317 

3 — VALUE  AS   AN   INTUITION 

So  important  is  this  formal  determination  of  the  essence 
of  value  that  it  is  worth  while  to  consider  it  further,  as  the 
reconciliation  of  sense  and   reason   so   far  as  these  are  ap- 
propriated by  the  striving  will  of  humanity.     This  phase  of 
the  contrast  is  of  special  significance,  too,  since  our  discus- 
sion of  naturistic  and  characteristic  ethics  was  carried   on 
by  constrasting  the  functions  of  sensuous  feeling  and  rational 
will.     The  category  of  value  is  broad  enough   in   form  as 
sufficiently  rich  in  content  to  include  these  opposing  forms 
of  human  existence.     Because  man  belongs  to  humanity  and 
not  wholly  to  the  world  of  spirit,  it  is  impossible  to  detach 
him  altogether  from  the  world  of  immediate  existence,  and 
survey  his  life  as  though  it  had  no  interest.  At  the  same  time, 
a  hedonic  view  despairs  of  accounting  for  the  definite  striv- 
ing for  the  ideal  manifest  in  man  as  soon  as  his  civilization 
and  culture  begin  to  draw  him  out  of  nature;  for  man  re- 
veals a  capacity  for  disinterestedness  appearing  in  his  sense 
of    impersonal    rectitude.     In    the    midst    of    this    dilemma, 
where  sense-interest  and   virtuous  disregard   for  well-being 
seem  about  to  reduce  all  moral  reasoning  to  perpetual  para- 
dox, there  appears  the  category  of  value  with  the  effect  of 
reconciling  opposites  by  relating  them  to  common  principles 
beneath  their  contrary  forms.     Suppose  that,  in  his  naturis- 
tic capacity,  man  does  seek  pleasure.     It  is  not  for  the  sake 
of  its  merely  felt  quality,  but  because  of  its  interest  for  him, 
or  the  value  that  it  seems  to  promise.     Or,  look  upon  him 
characteristically,  and  observe  the  striving  after  virtue.  Here 
again  man  is  persuaded  that  his  ideal  possesses  an  inherent 
worth,  which  he  strives  to  attain  to  and  realize  in  his  life. 
Humanity  is  the  valuing  system  of  the  universe,  and  its 
history  is  the  history  of  values.     Sense  alone  cannot  contain 
man  or  control  his  activities:  reason  alone  with  its  painful 
want  of  content  is  similarly  ineffectual ;  but  an  inherent  idea 
of  worth  that  can  express  itself  in  both  sense  and  intellect 
seems  best  calculated  to  express  the  inner  life  of  man  and 
the  peculiar  way  in  which  this  comes  forth  into  the  world  of 
sense,  where  it  interprets  nature  according  to  the  rational 
methods  of  science,  and  seeks  to  perfect  it  by  means  of  art. 


3i8  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

Let  it  not  be  thought  that  the  term  humanity  stands  for  a 
mere  generalization  like  plant  and  animal,  for  it  indicates 
something  unique.  For  man  there  is  only  one  problem,  only 
one  fact — humanity,  its  culture  and  inward  realization;  in 
human  life  the  central  problem  is  the  problem  of  values. 
The  whole  history  of  humanity  is  the  unfolding  of  values 
marked  here  and  there  by  critical  transvaluations.  The 
peculiar  nature  of  humanity  further  appears  in  the  fact  that 
it  cannot  be  objectified  by  reason  after  the  manner  of  either 
nature  or  spirit,  and  while  it  is  the  most  obvious  fact  to 
man,  he  is  unable  to  survey  it  abstractly  inasmuch  as  it  can- 
not be  detached  from  him. 

The  principle  of  intuition  so  significant  in  aesthetics  now 
allies  itself  with  the  idea  of  value,  while  the  latter  reacts 
upon  this  extraordinary  form  of  knowledge  with  the  effect 
of  giving  it  additional  weight.     Human  intuitions  reveal  a 
clear  consciousness  of  man's  place  in  the  total  world-order 
by  turning  away  from  both  sense  and   reason  in  their  ex- 
tremes of  concrete   and   abstract   and   finding  a  safe   mean 
between  them.     The  concept  stands  out  as  the  first  product 
of  the  understanding  due  to  abstraction  and  generalization; 
its  valuable  marks  consist  in  its  necessity  and  universality. 
The  percept  springs  from  sense  and,  with  its  advantage  of 
immediacy,   it   possesses  the   limitation   of   particularity   and 
contingency.     Midway  between  these  higher  and  lower  ex- 
tremes of  the  human  understanding  is  intuition  with  a  form 
both  conceptual  and  perceptible.     Intuitions  like  space  and 
time,  beauty  and  value,  contain  the  universal  and  necessary, 
but  in  a  perceptible  and  individual  form,  having  none  of  the 
limitations  of  abstraction    and    generalization    here,    or    of 
particularity  and  contingency  there.     Thus  a  definite  form- 
ula in  algebra  or  a  particular  proposition   in   geometry,  as 
well  as  an  individual  statue  or  a  single  act  of  virtue,  contain 
a  universal  and  necessary  truth  in  the  immediate  form  of 
perceptibility.     By  virtue  of  this  class  of  ideas,  which  are 
independent  of  sense  alone  or  understanding  alone,  but  de- 
pendent   upon    both    of    them    in    combination,    we    possess 
mathematical  and  aesthetical  truth,  and  in  the  intuition  the 
ethical  form  of  judgment  may  also  be  found.     Hence  the 
foundation  of  moral  truth  cannot  be  discovered  in  sense  or 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  319 

in  reason,  but  in  a  humanity  that  strangely  combines  the  two 
in  every  characteristic  thought  and  deed. 


4 — ^THE  SOURCE  OF  THE  VALUE-JUDGMENT 

The  category  of  value,  however,  is  capable  of  something 
more  than  dialectical  discussion,  for  its  central  position  in 
the  life  of  humanity  furnishes  it  with  a  manifold  of  conscious 
elements.  To  understand  the  essence  of  value,  that  it  may 
be  placed  beside  the  good  and  parallel  with  duty  as  a  moral 
finality,  it  becomes  necessary  to  subject  it  to  psychological 
scrutiny  both  as  to  its  form  and  content,  and  first  in  order 
of  notice  comes  the  fact  that  value  is  something  internal  and 
humanistic,  not  external  and  naturistic.  In  making  what 
may  appear  to  be  such  a  dubious  assertion  we  do  not  mean 
that  value  is  without  objective  reference,  but  simply  declare 
that  it  belongs  to  man  as  human  and  objectifies  itself  in  some 
other  than  the  natural  order,  namely,  the  w^orld  of  values 
as  we  shall  finally  consider  it.  To  penetrate  to  the  inward 
meaning  of  the  value-judgment  it  becomes  necessary  to 
abandon  the  idea  that  value  is  a  quality  inhering  in  things, 
as  though  gold  or  bread,  a  book  or  a  pen,  had  any  value  in 
itself,  and  content  ourselves  with  the  thought  that  it  is  our 
humanity  that  evaluates  things. 

A  few  instances  taken  from  other  mental  fields  will 
serve  to  introduce  the  psychological  point  of  the  internal 
nature  of  worth.  Sensation  with  its  immediate  dependence 
upon  physical  stimulus  is  possessed  of  subjective  quality  and 
intensity,  so  that  no  matter  how  close  may  be  the  psycholo- 
gical connection  between  visual  sensation  and  the  light,  au- 
ditory sensation  and  sound,  the  qualities  appearing  consist 
of  color  and  tone  whose  existence  is  purely  mental.  In  a 
similar  fashion  we  may  argue  for  the  inward  essence  of 
beauty  as  disinterested  human  pleasure.  Such  aesthetic  taste 
may  well  direct  itself  back  toward  nature  to  admire  its 
forms  and  qualities  or  may  seek  satisfaction  in  some  human 
creation ;  but  the  sense  of  beauty  lies  neither  in  the  land- 
scape nor  in  the  statue,  but  in  the  mind  of  the  beholder.  A 
third  instance  appears  in  the  case  of  utility,  and  while  we 
may  speak  of  things  as  though  they  were  useful,  the  essence 


320  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

of  utility  is  found  in  human  consciousness.  Such  an  article 
as  a  hammer  is  useful  only  to  a  being  fitted  with  a  hand ;  a 
fine  surgical  instrument  has  utility  only  for  a  person  with 
special  skill,  and  a  book  of  useful  information  sustains  such  a 
character  only  to  a  person  able  to  appreciate  it.  Hence  wc 
cannot  speak  of  utility  as  the  fixed  quality  of  any  thing,  but 
must  regard  it  as  something  internal  and  relative. 

Similar  forms  of  expression  must  be  found  to  contain  the 
principle  of  value  as  this  is  no  less  subjective  than  beauty, 
utility  or  sensation.  Even  where  the  principle  of  value 
reaches  its  lowest  and  most  practical  form  in  economics  the 
same  internal  view  is  possible.  In  its  most  general  charac- 
ter, value  expresses  our  human  sense  of  need  in  its  contrast 
to  the  mere  actuality  of  the  world,  and  there  is  a  sense  in 
which  all  philosophy  consists  in  relating  these  inner  wants 
to  outer  facts.  The  inward  nature  of  value  is  found  in 
human  feeling,  surveyed  in  the  broadest  sense  as  something 
susceptible  to  judgment  and  capable  of  being  expressed  in 
desire.  It  was  in  this  general  and  aesthetic  sense  that  Her- 
bart  discussed  the  idea  as  something  connected  with  preference 
or  rejection  and  yet  not  a  matter  of  feeling;  although  this 
rather  contradictory  condition  may  be  explained  by  saying 
that  Herbart's  intellectualism  led  him  to  regard  no  element 
but  that  of  representation  as  final.  At  a  later  period,  Lotzc 
took  a  similar  view,  so  far  as  the  internal  nature  of  value 
is  concerned,  but  allied  himself  with  hedonism  by  claiming 
that  value  and  lack  of  value  could  never  in  themselves  be 
attributed  to  things  since  both  existed  in  the  form  of  pleas- 
ure and  pain  in  a  sensitive  subject.  *'Es  gifbt  gar  keinen 
Wert  oder  JJnwert,  der  an  sich  einem  Dinge  zukommen 
konnte;  beide  existieren  bloss  in  Gestalt  von  Lust  und  Un- 
lust,  die  ein  gefiihlsfahiger  Geist  erfdhrt  (Grundziige  der 
praktischen  Philosophie,  §  7).  In  a  more  determined  fashion- 
Ehrenfels  has  expressed  the  inner  nature  of  value  by  assert- 
ing that  we  do  not  desire  things  because  they  have  value ; 
but  they  have  value  because  we  desire  them.  "Nicht  des- 
wegen  begehren  wir  die  Dinge,  weil  wir  jene  mysiische,  un- 
fassbare  Essenz  *Wert*  in  ihnen  erkennen,  Sondern  deswegen 
spree  hen  wir  den  Din  gen  'Wert*  zu  weil  wir  sie  begehren* 
(Sys,  d,  Werttheorie,  i.  Bd.  S.  I.) 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  321 


5 — VALUE,    PLEASURE    AND    DESIS-E 

The  most  natural  determinant  of  worth  appears  in  the 
form  of  pleasure,  and  although  we  have  relegated  hedonism 
to  an  inferior  position  in  the  ethical  striving  of  humanity, 
we  find  it  expedient  to  review  the  case  of  pleasure  in  order 
to  see  wherein  it  may  relate  to  the  idea  of  value  whose  con- 
tent is  now  being  sought.  Value  is  internal  and  thus  finds 
a  place  in  human  feeling  where  pleasure  itself  dwells;  but 
from  this  natural  condition  of  psychological  phenomena  it 
does  not  follow  that  pleasure  and  value  are  the  same.  There 
is  a  natural  connection  between  our  sense  of  worth  and  our 
feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain,  inasmuch  as  both  indicate  our 
human  interest,  and  while  we  do  not  see  fit  to  identify  these 
processes,  we  cannot  deny  that  feeling,  even  in  its  immediate 
hedonic  sense,  may  symbolize  the  general  sense  of  value 
which  we  have  raised  to  the  rank  of  ethical  category.  At 
this  point,  the  element  of  pleasure  must  be  analyzed  not 
only  for  its  own  sake,  but  because  it  is  regarded  as  a  rival 
of  desire  in  the  psychological  determination  of  worth. 

One  need  not  argue  long  to  show  how  feeling  presents 
a  certain  aspect  of  value,  so  that  the  only  question  concerns 
its  sufficiency  as  a  determination  of  worth.  In  addition  to 
the  quality  of  feeling,  which  arises  organically  in  connection 
with  such  physiological  functions  as  respiration  and  circula- 
tion of  the  blood,  there  is  the  inner  appreciation  of  the  feel- 
ing as  something  significant  for  man.  Theoretical  philosophy 
may  relate  man  to  the  world  according  to  the  principles  of 
knowledge  and  reality,  but  human  life  demands  something 
more  than  actuality ;  hence  arises  a  practical  philosophy  which 
takes  the  facts  of  pleasure  and  pain  and  applies  them  in  such 
a  way  as  to  secure  a  view  of  life  and  conduct.  Our  simple 
sensations  furnish  us  with  the  materials  of  knowledge,  al- 
though it  is  a  long  way  from  the  mere  reception  of  stimuli 
to  the  elaboration  of  judgments;  so  our  simple  feelings,  in- 
stead of  sinking  into  mere  animal  or  even  vegetable  functions, 
rise,  detaching  themselves  from  their  sources,  and  lead  us  to 
assume  an  attitude  toward  our  life  in  the  world. 

The  essential  element  in  this  pleasurable  determination 
of  value  lies  in  the  principle  of  judgment  based  upon  feeling. 


322  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

Melnong's  ''  Psychologisch-Ethische  Untersuchungen  zur 
Werth-Theorie'^  1894,  ^n^ls  the  essence  of  value  to  con- 
sist in  plejisure  so  formulated  in  the  judgment  that  one 
attributes  i^alue  to  an  object  when  its  existence  causes  pleas- 
ure, its  non-existence  pain.  Negatively  considered,  one  finds 
lack  of  value  (Unwert)  to  arise  as  a  judgment  when  the 
existence  of  the  object  causes  pain,  its  non-existence  pleasure 
(S  5-8).  This  he  narrows  down  quite  empirically  by 
declaring  that  the  object  to  be  valued  must  exist."  Man 
kann  in  diesen  Sinne  sagen :  fur  die  fVertgefiihle  ist  es  wesent- 
lich,  dass  sie  Existenz-Gefilhle  sing**  (S.  5).  Reischle, 
whose  interest  is  the  theological  rather  than  the  economic 
one,  finds  value  to  consist  in  something  pleasurable,  but 
believes  that  the  object  may  be  ideal  as  well  as  real  while 
the  subject  is  found  in  the  entire  ego,  rather  than  in  some 
function  of  consciousness.  Value  is  defined  as  "die  Eigens- 
chaft  eines  Gegenstandes,  durch  sein  Dasein  meinem  fiihlend- 
wollenden  Ich  direckt  oder  indireckt  Befriedigung  zu 
gewahren    {Werturtheile  und  Glaubensurtheile,  S.  43). 

The  definition  of  value  in  terms  of  pleasure  has  all  the 
advantages  of  immediacy  and  definiteness  and  thus  a  diffi- 
cult psychological  problem  seems  capable  of  easy  solution. 
Yet  the  history  of  hedonism  has  made  us  suspicious  of  such 
a  form  of  calculation,  and  where  pleasure  fails  to  account 
for  the  conduct  of  life  it  is  not  likely  to  satisfy  the  conditions 
of  a  value-theory.  Nevertheless,  we  may  indulge  the 
thought  that  value  has  something  about  it  for  the  sake  of 
realizing  that  to  a  human  consciousness  feeling  consists  of 
something  more  than  a  felt  quality,  for  the  reason  that  it 
appeals  to  a  special  form  of  life.  Just  as  the  phenomena  of 
nature  have  a  formal  significance  for  man  with  his  science 
and  art,  so  the  phenomena  of  consciousness  must  be  subjected 
to  human  interpretation  if  their  ultimate  nature  is  to  be 
known.  Reason  assumes  an  attitude  toward  the  world  of 
sense  and  turns  it  into  a  system  of  natural  forms,  while  it 
surveys  the  inner  world  of  feeling  with  the  effect  of  ordering 
it  according  to  a  judgment  of  worth.  Just  as  the  hedonic 
law  seeks  to  descend  to  the  sub-conscious  and  turn  pleasure 
into  bodily  benefit  and  pain  into  bodily  harm,  so  the  law  of 
value  calls  upon  us  to  raise  these  qualities  from  mere  feeling 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  323 

to  the  plane  of  knowledge  and  judgment.  Feeling  thus 
constitutes  the  raw  material  of  value  and  while  we  cannot 
say  the  pleasurable  is  the  worthy,  any  more  than  we  could 
assert  that  color  and  tone  are  knowledge,  we  cannot  deny 
that  apart  from  feeling  value  is  nothing. 

In  itself,  pleasure  is  limited  by  the  temporal  and  passive 
in  such  a  way  as  to  forbid  its  attaining  to  the  full  stature 
of  value.  Pleasure  is  instantaneous  and  its  evanescent  form 
does  not  seem  to  have  the  stability  of  a  value-judgment 
which  exists  out  of  time  as  a  permanent  attitude  of  man 
toward  his  life  in  the  world.  Pleasure  also  comes  in  as  the 
result  of  an  activity  promoted  by  the  value  of  the  object 
sought,  and  if  we  had  to  wait  for  pleasure  to  determine  our 
values,  WT  should  have  no  means  of  determining  our  at- 
titude toward  our  inner  experience,  no  way  of  arousing 
activity  toward  the  realization  of  our  desires.  Reischle's 
idea  of  Gesammt-ich  Befriedigung  escapes  purely  hedonic 
difficulty  of  a  temporary  pleasure  as  the  value  determinant; 
but  does  not  fulfill  our  expectations  of  an  active  principle  in 
harmony  with  the  striving  nature  of  humanity. 

Not  only  the  weakness  of  pleasure  as  something  passive 
occurring  only   now  and   then   in   consciousness   inclines  us 
toward   desire,    but   the   latter  seems   more   fully   to   accord 
with  our  inner  human  striving.     When,  therefore,  we  seek 
to  represent  man's  attempt  to  raise  himself  above  nature  for 
the  sake  of  human  realization,  we  find  that  our  philosophy 
is  furthered  by  a  theory  of  value,  according  to  which  the 
humanity  of  man  becomes  a  question  of  his  worth.     Man 
strives  not  on  account  of  some  metaphysical  ideal  of  being, 
but  for  the  sake  of  attaining  the  value  that  by  right  of  human- 
ity belongs  to  him.     The  ontological  fact  expressed  by  say- 
ing, "I  think,  therefore  I  am,  '  is  capable  of  an  ethical  in- 
terpretation whereby  the  individual  reasons,  "I  feel,  there- 
fore I  have  worth."     Humanity  is  at  once  theoretical  and 
practical,  real  and  ideal;  its  being  and  character  are  express- 
ible also  in  terms  of  value,  and  if,  for  the  sake  of  argument, 
we  assume  that  self-consciousness  could  consist  of  the  mere 
thought  of  self  apart  from  the  feeling  of  self,  it  is  inconceiv- 
able that  the  being  of  man  as  human  could  be  established. 
To  be  man  consists  in  something  more  than  making  a  dis- 


324  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

Hncrion  between  self  and  not-self;  it  involves  a  contrast 
bctwxen  the  worth  of  the  soul  and  the  non-worth  of  the 
world.     Desire  is  a  form  of  human  striving  directed  toward 

value. 

In  determining  the  general  nature  of  worth,  we  found 
desire  to  be  a  consistent  way  of  indicating  how  internal  and 
human  our  sense  of  value  really  is;  for  the  value  of  a  thing 
seems  to  consist  in  its  desirability.  In  contrast  to  Mcinong, 
Ehrenfels  makes  value  to  consist  in  desire,  and  sees  in  it  a 
relation  between  subject  and  object,  rather  than  a  character- 
istic or  function  of  the  object  itself.  (Sys.  d.  fVerttheorie, 
S.  21 ).  The  contrast  between  pleasure  and  desire  reveals 
the  fact  that,  where  one  relates  itself  to  the  present,  the  other 
is  allied  with  the  future;  and  so  marked  is  the  conipetition 
between  them  that,  where  desire  is  active,  pleasure  is  want- 
ing, but  as  pleasure  comes  in  desire  departs.  We  desire 
what  we  do  not  have ;  we  no  longer  desire  when  once  we  are 
in  possession  of  our  object.  To  overcome  this  difficulty, 
Krueger  has  modified  the  idea  of  desire  so  that  it  stands  for 
desire  in  the  larger  sense  of  a  "relatively  constant  desire" — 
Wertvoll  ist  fiir  mich  nur,  was  ich  relativ  konstant  begehre 
(Des  Absolut  Wertvollen  S.  33)-  According  to  this  am- 
plification, one  could  value  an  object  without  actually  desir- 
ing it  for  the  time  being  by  seeing  how  it  corresponds  to  his 
relatively  constant  desire. 

The  secret  of  value  seems  to  be  found  in  desire  whose 
inner  nature  is  made  up  of  both  feeling  and  will.  What- 
ever be  the  exact  nature  of  the  impulse  toward  reality, 
whether  will-to-live  or  struggle  for  existence,  it  is  evident 
that  by  means  of  its  career  in  nature  the  human  species  has 
acquired  a  desire  to  live  according  to  the  nature  of  its  own 
type,  whereby  we  are  entitled  to  speak  of  a  specific  human 
striving.  At  heart,  this  striving  is  desire  and  the  unknown 
tendency  urging  onward  both  nature  and  humanity  reflects 
itself  in  man's  conscious  striving  after  self-realization.  Human 
values  are  human  desires  surveyed  in  the  light  of  the  con- 
stant impulse  toward  the  inner  perfection  of  humanity,  and 
while  it  is  misleading  to  adopt  a  simple  formula  which  says, 
"The  value  of  a  thing  is  its  desirability",  it  is  active  feeling 
that  perfects  our  sense  of  worth  and  inspires  man  in  his 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  325 

attempts  at  the  assertion  of  his  selfhood  in  opposition  to 
nature.  Nevertheless,  empirical  desire  in  its  given  form 
cannot  fully  express  the  nature  of  value,  and  where  Krueger 
in  his  search  for  absolute  worth  found  it  necessary  to  ad- 
vance beyond  Ehrenfels,  we  must  take  still  another  step 
and  consider  value  in  an  idealized  form. 

The  valuable  is  the  desirable;  such  seems  to  be  the  con- 
dition of  the  question  when  the  essential  nature  of  humanity 
is  related  to  the  goal  it  ever  seeks.     This  position  is  not  the 
same  as  that  expressed  by  saying,  A  thing  has  value  because 
we  desire  it ;  or,  The  value  of  an  object  is  determined  by  the 
relatively  constant  desire  for  it;  but  consists  in  sayine,  Valu/» 
is  idealized  desire.     We  cannot  run  the  risk  of  logical  fallacy 
by  saying,  Value  indicates  what  we  ought  to  desire,  for  by 
means  of  the  concept  of  value  we  seek  to  determine  the 
nature  of  obligation.     Humanity  has  no  place  for  an  uncondi- 
tioned ought  yet  it  evinces  the  tendency  to  idealize  its  desires 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  them  the  basis  of  the  moral  life. 
When,   therefore,  we  say  that  value   indicates   desirability, 
we  do  not  assert  that  the  empirical  ego  actually  surrenders 
himself    to    such    an    ideal,   but  simply  claim  that   reason 
recognizes  the  presence  of  a  desire  of  desires,  sought  by  man 
in    independence   of   a   law   of    duty.     When    the    Hebrew 
psalmist  says,  The  judgments  of  Jehovah  are  more  to  be 
desired  than   gold,   he  does  not  mean  that  mere  desire  or 
mere  duty  inclines  man  toward  such  ideals,  but  suggests  that 
w'hen  man  is  himself,  he  naturally  chooses  these  ethical  prin- 
ciples as  elements  of  his  own  nature.     While  duty  as  well  as 
desire  may  seem  to  be  a  determinant  of  worth,  it  is  because 
the  man  of  sense-experience  does  not  lend  himself  to  ideal 
tasks  without  some  sort  of  struggle  whose  severity  is  often 
confused  with  moral  merit. 

The  man  of  common  experience  does  not  know  the  life 
of  values  and  cannot  see  in  virtue  that  which  is  to  be  de- 
sired. Suppose  our  "free  moral  agent"  were  the  ideal  man, 
or  the  "man  of  the  future" ;  would  he  not  choose  the  highest 
in  life  as  something  native  to  him?  For  ourselves,  we  must 
live  according  to  idealized  desires,  or  value-judgments,  which 
are  only  partly  verified  by  experience,  and  yet  we  may  real- 
ize that  life  has  the  possibility  of  nobility  unknown  in  the 


326  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

morals  of  desire  or  duty.  Value  is  thus  a  human  attribute 
given  to  man  in  view  of  his  moral  vocation,  and  while  a 
critical  pessimism  forbids  that  wc  should  survey  man  as  at 
all  ideal,  still  we  are  enabled  to  see  the  meaning  of  his  ethical 
life  as  one  of  values  whose  essence  is  the  desire  of  the  ideal- 
ized man.  Such  a  psychological  determination  of  the  con- 
tent of  value  seems  to  be  in  keeping  with  the  conceptual  idea 
of  its  form  as  something  both  immediate  and  ultimate.  An 
ethical  theory  which  seeks  to  account  for  the  inner  life  of 
humanity,  while  it  aims  also  to  point  out  the  apparent  destiny 
of  man,  has  no  need  to  pursue  such  psychological  analysis 
any  further.  Value  has  a  real  place  in  consciousness,  so  that 
we  need  not  construct  an  ideal  arbitrarily  as  has  been  done 
with  the  intuitional  idea  of  rectitude ;  we  need  only  carry  to 
its  just  conclusion  the  principle  of  desire  that  makes  man 
what  he  is. 

To  be  w^orthy,  a  theory  of  value  must  gratify  something 
more  than  psychological  curiosity  about  the  origin  of  judg- 
ments of  worth.  Hence  the  proper  order  for  such  a  theory 
to  follow,  consists  in  a  forward  movement  calculated  to 
align  an  ideal  value  rather  than  a  backward  one  hemmed 
in  by  man's  immediate  life  in  nature  and  societv.  Our 
object  has  been  to  investigate  the  ever-perfecting  values  of 
the  world  of  culture  rather  than  the  primitive  ones  of  the 
world  of  nature  In  this  way,  we  may  question  the 
value  of  our  values,  and  seek  to  distinguish  permanent 
worth  from  temporary  marginal  utility.  Ethics  should  seek 
the  unity  of  value  as  this  is  gradually  being  perfected  by  the 
development  of  humanity.  Such  unity  exists  even  where 
we  are  unable  to  express  it  in  convincing  lanR:uage;  philoso- 
phy cannot  decide  the  ultimate  nature  of  substance  or  good- 
ness, but  there  is  only  one  reality  and  only  one  value.  For 
itself,  the  category  of  value  seems  to  satisfy  the  conditions 
of  an  ethical  theory,  because  it  harmonizes  the  real  and  ideal, 
feeling  and  will,  while  it  leaves  the  unity  of  the  spirit  un- 
disturbed by  a  conflict  between  theoretical  and  practical. 


Ill 


VALUE  AS  ETHICAL  SANCTION 


I — THE   GROUND   OF    MORAL    JUDGMENT 

The  conceptual  form  of  value  and  its  psychological  posi- 
tion in  desire  encourage  us  to  believe  that  we  have  found 
something  indeed  categorical  whose  nature  may  be  compared 
with  the  good  and  duty.  Our  aim  has  been  to  work  back 
from  the  active  principle  of  duty  to  the  passive  idea  of  the 
good  by  means  of  the  conceptual  notion  of  worth.  In  the 
unity  of  these  contrary  principles  we  hope  to  find  an  ethical 
ideal  for  the  future.  The  case  of  the  good  is  no  longer 
imminent,  so  that  the  corrective  function  of  value  applies 
more  directly  to  the  modern  notion  of  duty,  where  revision 
is  sadly  needed.  Our  modern  age  has  not  really  repudiated 
duty,  but  it  has  shown  a  hesitancy  to  obey  a  command  whose 
purpose  is  not  and  cannot  be  made  known.  Both  the  source 
and  outcome  of  action  are  excluded  by  the  theory  of  obliga- 
tion ;  man  ought  to  obey,  that  is  enough.  Nevertheless,  this 
nameless  duty,  connected  with  no  natural  spring  of  action 
and  conducive  to  no  result  in  conduct,  does  not  seem  to  ex- 
press the  highest  in  humanity  and  we  feel  justified  in  turning 
to  the  category  of  value  to  see  how  far  it  expresses  the  sense 
of  our  ethical  striving. 

With  special  reference  to  conscience,  we  may  note  again 
how  human  is  this  sense  of  approval-disapproval.  If  con- 
science depends  upon  a  sense  of  agreement  or  disagreement 
with  the  human  order,  we  may  assume  further  that  this  rela- 
tion consists  of  no  mere  theoretical  adjustment  of  individual 
to  humanity,  but  a  practical  sense  of  worth  according  to 
which  right  and  wrong  may  be  determined.  Conscience 
dictates  values  as  these  arise  in  the  realization  of  humanity, 
and  apart  from  a  feeling  of  worth  the  ideas  of  approval  and 
disapproval   have   no   content.     So    far   as   the   progress   of 

327 


328  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

ethics  is  concerned,  the  sense  of  approval  has  received  only 
hedonic  treatment  as  though  it  were  a  form  of  pleasure,  while 
its  significance  as  a  relation  between  man  and  his  humanity 
is  better  understood  as  a  sense  of  value.  These  values  that 
conscience  defends  assume  the  form  of  standards  whose 
violation  causes  remorse;  they  represent  the  desires  of  hu- 
manity which  when  thwarted  redound  upon  the  offender  in 
the  form  of  pain.  If  man  did  not  offend  a  sense  of  value 
and  thereby  cause  harm,  his  sense  of  compunction  could 
have  no  significance. 

An  approach  to  the  category  of  value  may  now  be  made 
by  still  another  criticism  of  characteristic  ethics.  This 
system  surveys  morality  as  such  apart  from  any  other  human 
interest,  and  by  so  doing  realizes  the  ideals  of  autonomy, 
duty  and  the  like.  But  such  a  formal  triumph  is  not  brought 
about  without  cost,  for  we  observe  that  it  makes  morality 
appear  to  be  without  worth.  Let  us  return  to  the  usuaJ 
questions  of  conventional  morality.  "What  is  right?  That 
which  is  right.  Why  should  we  perform  duty?  Because 
it  is  duty."  The  argument  is  convincing,  as  the  case  is  com- 
plete, and  had  we  only  the  law  of  identity  to  guide  us, 
nothing  more  could  be  said,  for  right  is  right  as  surely  as 
duty  is  duty.  But  just  as  all  science  seeb  synthetic  judg- 
ments capable  of  enlarging  our  knowledge  of  nature  and 
enriching  its  content,  so  genuine  ethics  seeks  to  account  for 
humanity  as  its  life  is  conducting  itself,  and  man  is  not 
called  upon  to  repudiate  desire  simply  because  a  certain 
theory  of  ethics  cannot  include  that  in  its  system.  Rigorism 
is  of  negative  value  only;  it  convinces  us  that  our  life  is  not 
realized  in  nature,  but  does  not  proceed  to  show  us  how  its 
end  is  found  in  humanity.  It  convinces  us  that  virtue  exists, 
but  does  not  show  that  it  has  worth. 

The  formal  aim  of  the  theory  of  value  when  considered 
in  strict  connection  with  ethics  is  found  in  the  function  of 
judgment.  Thus  furnished,  we  may  say,  "Virtue  has  value- 
duty  should  be  done  because  of  its  worth  ',  but  unless  this 
sense  of  value  obtains,  the  obligation  to  fulfill  the  obligation 
does  not  hold.  Owing  to  the  limitation  of  our  knowledge, 
we  cannot  always  indicate  precisely  what  the  moral  outcome 
of  an  act  may  be,   but  we  can   rest   assured   that  if   it   be 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  329 

absolutely  obligatory  it  is  because  it  ]X)ssesses  absolute  worth. 
It  is  inconceivable  that  a  duty  should  be  binding  when  it  docs 
iMt  indicate  any  inherent  value.  With  temperance  and 
courage,  the  virtues  involved  express  at  once  the  values  im- 
plied. With  benevolence  and  justice,  we  find  that  the  human 
values  inherent  in  society  make  these  virtues  real.  And  with 
veracity  and  honesty,  however  intuitive  and  indisputable 
they  seem,  the  same  reasoning  holds  good;  for  these  virtues 
do  not  represent  a  relationlcss  attitude  on  the  part  of  the 
moral  subject,  but  a  condition  of  humanity  so  marked  by 
social  and  economic  relations  that  these  forms  of  fidelity  are 
praised  for  their  inherent  worth.  Could  they  be  virtuous, 
if  they  were  worthless? 

Where  the  idea  of  value  supplies  the  ground  of  rectitude, 
so  it  also  gives  a  reason  for  moral  endeavor.  From  the 
standpoint  of  the  isolated  deed,  the  conventional  theory  of 
duty  may  act  as  a  satisfactory  guide,  and  with  ethics  in  the 
lesser  sense  of  the  term,  indicating  a  study  of  mere  action, 
it  may  keep  its  accustomed  place.  But  as  a  philosophy  of  life 
which  surveys  the  totality  of  inner  consciousness,  as  well  as 
the  continuity  of  human  striving,  the  theory  of  duty  has 
little  to  offer ;  for  obligation  can  never  account  for  the  com- 
plete performance  of  humanity  in  its  striving  after  self- 
realization.  The  ethics  of  duty  has  no  sympathy  for  human- 
ity and  in  its  cynicism  sees  no  reason  why  the  soul  should 
seek  nourishment  from  beauty  and  joy.  At  the  same  time  it 
distrusts  man  and  suggests  that  were  duty  withdrawn  the 
will  would  forever  go  astray  in  its  striving.  For  these  and 
other  reasons  it  secnos  to  follow  that  one  who  surrenders  to 
duty  must  also  alnndon  his  humanity,  and  he  who  makes 
rectitude  the  guide  of  his  life  can  never  realize  hinriself  as  a 
human  spirit.  The  morality  peculiar  to  the  school  of  charac- 
teristic eth  cs  is  ever  the  morality  of  negation,  and  in  its 
destructive  course  it  tends  to  crush  all  ideals  and  interests. 
It  makes  man  subordinate  to  ethics  when  ethics  is  only  one 
of  the  products  of  his  human  spontaneity. 

a — THE    SENSE    OF    MORAL    ACTION 


The  theory  of  valueless  duty  loses  in  logical  consistency 


330  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

as  It  gains  in  moral  force.  If  man  is  called  upon  to  sur- 
render himself  to  the  categorical  imperative,  he  should  have 
some  idea  why  this  sacrifice  is  to  be  made,  but  duty  as 
ordinarily  conceived  is  unintelligible.  We  ought ;  that  is  the 
whole  of  the  matter.  An  ethical  philosophy  of  life  cannot 
tolerate  such  a  paradox,  but  demands  that  moral  action  shall 
sustain  some  relation  to  human  striving;  hence  where  life  is 
conceived  of  as  having  a  purpose,  morality  can  only  be  viewed 
as  though  it  conduced  to  that  same  end.  The  theory  of  life 
as  duty  makes  no  provision  for  the  results  of  moral  en- 
deavor, just  as  it  fails  to  supply  a  ground  for  our  ethical 
judgments.  Right  is  right  because  it  has  value;  duty  must 
be  done  because  it  promotes  worth — such  is  the  standpoint 
our  view  of  humanity  and  its  values  allows  us  to  assume; 
but  the  traditional  theory  of  duty  fears  to  use  such  hypothe- 
tical imperatives  and  prefers  to  leave  rectitude  groundless  and 
duty  resultless.  At  the  same  time,  mar  is  suspected  of  un- 
due interest  in  the  origin  and  outcome  of  his  duties  when  he 
demurs  against  sheer  duty,  yet  it  cannot  be  denied  that  he 
has  an  intellectual  right  to  know  why  he  must  so  act,  especial- 
ly when  conduct  costs  so  much  in  the  way  of  self-denial. 

Value  is  the  absolute  good  to  which  other  ethical  prin- 
ciples must  relate  themselves;  into  it  all  sense  of  human 
pleasure  falls,  while  from  it  all  feeling  of  duty  springs.  It 
is  in  this  sense  that  Krueger,  in  "Der  Begriff  des  absolut 
Wertvollen\  makes  the  absolute  ought  to  consist  in  absolute 
worth.  '*Von  absoluten  Sollen  oder  unbedingter  Pflicht 
darf  die  wissenschaftliche  Ethik  nur  Reden  im  Sinne  eines 
absolut  Wertvollen,  wo  absolut  nicht  anders  bedeutet,  als, 
unbedingt  fur  jedes  wertende  Bewusstsein*  (S.  6o).  The 
"good**  that  remains  in  moral  isolation  so  that  it  does  not 
touch  the  inner  life  of  man  is  good  in  name  alone,  and  when 
we  seek  content  for  it  we  can  find  this  only  in  a  sense  of 
value,  or  man's  appreciation  of  his  life  in  the  world.  Simi- 
larly the  duty  that  absorbs  all  of  man's  activities  without 
promising  to  advance  him  toward  the  goal  of  his  life,  indeed, 
without  being  able  to  promote  his  human  interests,  is  equally 
empty,  and  only  an  artificial  system  of  moralizing  can  put 
man  in  such  a  paradoxical  position.  To  see  worth  in  obliga- 
tion, and  to  make  the  moral  law  a  law  of  values  is  to  relieve 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  331 

a  troubled  situation. 

The  determination  of  value  through  desire  has  the  ad- 
vantage of  effecting  the  transition  to  the  ideal  of  obligation. 
Already,  in  our  attempt  to  correct  the  notion  of  an  abstract 
duty's  binding  us  without  regard  to  our  position  in  the 
world,  we  turned  to  the  idea  of  humanity  as  a  natural  deter- 
minant of  obligation ;  for  without  any  categorical  impera- 
tive, we  feel  obliged  to  choose  certain  moral  goods  and  that 
in  a  manner  quite  different  from  mere  logical  conviction  or 
aesthetical  preference.  That  which  is  calculated  to  con- 
strain us  in  such  matters  is  the  inherent  sense  of  worth  at- 
taching to  an  idea,  and  when  that  feeling  of  worth  has  about 
it  the  dynamic  element  of  desire,  the  meaning  of  obligation 
becomes  clearer.  It  is  easier  to  speak  of  duty  as  having  value 
than  of  value  as  possessing  duty;  in  other  words,  value  is 
the  predicate  that  includes  the  subject,  since  the  latter  in- 
dicates something  more  extensive  than  the  former.  Where 
there  is  no  value  there  can  be  no  duty,  for  the  imperative 
calling  upon  us  to  choose  something  indifferent  could  not 
exist  as  a  moral  ideal.  Hence,  w^e  may  say  that,  though 
things  have  value  because  we  desire  them,  they  should  be 
done  because  they  have  value. 

Moral  values  thus  established  by  humanity  in  its  progress 
toward  realization  are  not  to  be  confused  with  utilities.  The 
difference  between  value  and  utility  may  be  seen  by  con- 
trasting the  empirical  condition  of  society  as  something  given, 
and  the  ideal  condition  of  humanity  as  conceived  by  the 
mind.  Virtues  may  serve  as  practical  utilities  for  a  society 
in  some  particular  condition  of  civilization,  as  courage  for 
the  Spartan,  wisdom  for  the  Athenian,  justice  for  the  Roman ; 
but  from  the  standpoint  of  inner  humanity  these  same  ideals 
stand  out  as  inherent  values.  The  architecture  of  the  Part- 
henon had  utility  for  the  religion  of  the  Athenians  in  their 
day,  but  it  also  has  value  for  all  mankind.  In  establishing 
the  value  of  our  experiences  we  do  not  seek  to  show  that 
they  are  useless,  but  want  only  to  point  out  how  value  serves 
the  ethical  interests  of  man  and  furthers  his  self-realization 
in  a  way  that  utility,  with  its  place  in  immediate  advantage, 
does  not.  Utilities  are  confined  to  the  naturistic  wants  of 
man  as  these  assume  economic  forms;  values  have  a  humanis- 


332  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

tic  significance  and  supply  the  foundation  for  the  ethical  life 
of  man.  Values  may  be  realized  through  utilities,  but  they 
are  not  bounded  by  them  and  relate  to  them  only  in  the 
sense  that  both  concern  the  interest  of  man  in  his  ambiguous 
position  in  the  universe. 

3 VALUE   AS   BASIS  OF   MORAL   BELIEF 

The  valuational  determination  of  morality  is  advantageous 
further  in  oflFsetting  ethical  skepticism.  Where  the  ethical 
is  based  upon  the  naturistic  principle  of  desire  or  the  charac- 
teristic principle  of  duty,  it  is  likely  to  fall  short  of  man's 
moral  expectations,  inasmuch  as  desire  gives  too  little  and 
duty  asks  too  much.  When  morality  is  not  subordinated  to 
the  totality  of  life  it  may  mislead  man  and  make  him  doubt 
the  wisdom  of  obeying  the  moral  law ;  for  which  reason  it 
becomes  all  the  more  urgent  to  establish  the  worth  of  our 
moral  striving.  Poetry  is  always  effective  when  it  subsumes 
a  human  creature  beneath  some  impersonal  law  and  then, 
by  a  process  of  action  and  suffering,  shows  how  to  break 
down  under  the  strain  of  the  ideal.  Either  he  has  expected 
immediate  eudaemonistic  benefits  or  he  has  had  such  faith  in 
himself  as  to  imagine  his  morality  could  keep  him  abreast  of 
life.  The  drama  of  Job  as  well  as  the  dramas  of  Ibsen  point 
to  this  despair  over  the  resultlessness  of  the  ideal  as  one  of 
the  abysses  into  which  the  soul  may  fall  without  knowing 
how  to  extricate  himself.  Ethical  nihilism  is  founded  upon 
just  such  doubt  concerning  nature  and  humanity  in  their 
relation  to  the  moral  ideal. 

Upon  eudaemonistic  principles.  Job  finds  no  safe  way 
to  determine  the  value  of  righteousness.  Prosperity  leads 
his  tempter  to  ask,  "Does  Job  fear  God  for  naught?"  (I.  9), 
and  when  he  is  brought  low  without  and  within  and  is  con- 
fronted by  faith  and  righteousness  divested  of  all  advantage, 
the  Temanite  assails  even  these  and  asks,  "Can  a  man  be 
profitable  unto  God?  Is  it  pleasure  to  the  Almighty  that 
thou  art  righteous?"  (xxii  2-3).  Whatever  may  be  the 
assignable  outcome  of  this  Hebrew  drama  it  will  appear 
that  the  hero  gains  in  insight  and  gradually  learns  to  find 
the  worth  of  righteousness  in  something  substantial.     Ibsen 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  333 

hardly  escapes  from  nihilism  in  his  moral  satire,  "Brand", 
and  in  the  social  dramas  of  his  later  period,  yet  he  does  not 
fail  to  point  out  how  dangerous  is  a  groundless  ethics  which 
insists  upon  duty  without  assigning  any  reason  for  its  per- 
formance.    "Brand"  involves  its  author  in  a  moral  skepti- 
cism incident   upon  the   fearful  consequences  of  an  uncom- 
promising "All  or  Naught."     In  more  direct  fashion  Mrs. 
Alying,   with   the   "Ghosts"   of   "dead   ideas"   and   "lifeless 
beliefs"  about  her,  turns  upon  her  moralistic  Pastor  Manders 
by  saying,  "When  you  forced  me  under  the  yoke  of  what 
you  call  duty  and  obligation ;  when  you  lauded  as  right  and 
proper  what  my  whole  soul  revolted  against  as  something 
loathsome ;  it  was  then  that  I  began  to  look  into  the  seams 
of  your  doctrines.     I  wanted  only  to  pick  at  a  single  knot; 
but  when  I  had  got  that  undone,  the  whole  thing  ravelled 
out.     And  then  I  understood  that  it  was  all  machine-sewn" 
(Act.  11).     With  more  personal  reference  to  Ibsen  himself 
the  "Wild   Duck"  represents  the  author's  self-contempt  in 
the  person  of   Gregers  Werle  who  went  about   presenting 
the  "claim  of  the  ideal"  while  suffering  from  an  "acute  at- 
tack   of    integrity"    (Act    ill).        Later    dramas   like    "Ros- 
mersholm"  seem  to  reassert  faith  in  the  ideal,  but  they,  as 
in  this  case,  point  out  how  the  "Rosmer  view  of  life  en- 
nobles,   but    kills    all    happiness"    (Act    iv)  ;    while    "The 
Master  Builder"  represents  the    hero    as    wanting    in    the 
"robust  conscience"  of  a  Viking  (Act  11).     It  is  true  that 
these  dramas  do  not  lead  us  to  a  secure  ideal,  but  they  are 
of  value  in  warning  ethical  writers  against  an  absolute  ethics 
of  the  unconditioned.     Man  should  be  taught  that  the  pur- 
suit of  the  good,  while  it  may  not  yield  a  full  amount  of 
immediate  happiness,  is  not  necessarily  a  resultless  drudgery 
according  to  an  alien  law;  and  in  the  midst  of  moral  success 
and  failure  there  is  still  an  abiding  sense  of  moral  worth. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  valuational  view  of  ethics  tends 
to  reveal  the  meaning  of  wrong  as  well  as  rectitude.  Hedon- 
ism can  call  it  pain,  and  rigorism  speak  of  it  as  disobedience, 
but  the  essential  nature  of  badness  is  capable  of  more 
thorough  determination.  Man  cannot  harm  the  universe, 
that  is,  the  world  of  individual  things  or  individual  persons; 
but  he  can  wrong  humanity  and  its  sense  of  values.     It  is 


334  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

not  the  body  or  the  mind  that  is  wronged  by  the  aggressor's 
insult  or  act  of  violence,  but  man's  inherent  sense  of  value 
as  this  appears  in  the  totality  of  his  consciousness.  Upon 
any  other  determination,  the  sense  of  sufiEering  wrong  or 
doing  wrong  seems  to  have  no  significance,  and  where  the 
worth  of  human  life  is  not  considered,  both  right  and  wrong 
seem  blind  and  purposeless.  He  who  trespasses  upon  the 
rights  of  another  is  moved  by  the  idea  of  some  value  that 
his  bad  act  will  bring  him,  while  the  person  threatened  by 
the  wrong  feels  that  he  is  about  to  sustain  some  loss  of  value 
belonging  to  him.  The  suffering  of  a  certain  amount  of 
pain  or  the  knowledge  that  an  abstract  commandment  was 
being  broken  could  never  account  for  our  feelings  when  we 
are  wronged,  for  the  suffering  has  a  deeper  source  in  the 
valuing  consciousness  of  our  very  life. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  wrong-doer  the  evil  act 
creates  an  illusion  whereby  vices  like  greed  or  lust,  revenge 
or  violence  in  general  seem  to  advance  the  interests  of  the 
malicious  ego.  But  the  wisdom  of  life  constantly  warns 
man  that  such  a  hope  is  fruitless,  inasmuch  as  all  evil-doing 
is  in  vain.  Thus  the  vanity  of  wrong  seems  to  follow  as  the 
negative  consequence  of  the  value  of  rectitude,  so  that  he  who 
follows  virtue  can  never  lose  anything  valuable,  just  as  he 
who  follows  vice  can  never  thereby  be  the  gainer.  In  such 
a  double  fashion  does  the  category  of  value  afford  a  sanction 
for  ethics,  in  that  it  supplies  a  ground  for  moral  action. 
Pleasure  may  act  as  a  motive  for  virtuous  action,  but  it  can 
never  supply  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  same;  the  sense  of 
duty  may  be  invoked  but  its  lack  of  purposes  only  points  out 
the  need  of  a  further  principle  in  ethical  action  and  judg- 
ment. Value-vanity  as  a  moral  standard  set  up  by  humanity 
carries  us  beyond  both  pleasure  and  duty  and  appeals  to  the 
very  sense  of  our  life  in  the  universe.  From  it  we  learn 
how  virtue  advances  the  supreme  human  interest  of  man 
while  vice  tends  to  hinder  his  progress  toward  the  goal  of 
his  striving.  When  one  observes  how  humanity  ever  urges 
itself  onward  toward  realization,  he  sees  how  valuable  it  is 
to  lend  his  will  to  the  general  ethical  tendency  as  this  in- 
volves all  his  interests,  and  how  vain  it  is  to  seek  satisfac- 
tion in  any  other  way.     Where  happiness  enters  in  to  color 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  335 

the  life  of  the  value-seeking  subject,  it  appeals  to  him  as  an 
evidence  that  he  has  found  the  one  ethical  reality,  and  in  this 
august  form  of  judgment  the  felecific  element  is  totally  sub- 
merged. 

4 — THE   WORLD  OF  VALUES 

The  final  considerations  incident  upon  our  view  of  value 
as  ethical  sanction  lead  us  to  inquire  in  what  way  the  cate- 
gory of  value  expresses  reality;  indeed,  such  a  question  has 
been  implied  in  the  whole  course  of  the  discussion.  Value 
we  regarded  as  a  category  not  inferior  to  the  ancient  ''good" 
and  modern  "duty",  and  an  examination  of  its  inner  nature 
showed  us  how  conceptual  was  its  being.  The  psychological 
view  of  value  as  the  desirable  could  not  exclude  a  certain 
element  of  idealism  whereby  actual  desire  was  transformed 
into  something  worthy,  while  the  ethical  estimate  of  the 
principle  became  unintelligible  upon  any  other  basis  than 
that  of  a  realm  of  real  values.  Few  of  our  ethical  ideals 
are  capable  of  such  cosmic  construction,  and  w^e  feel  that 
neither  thought  nor  language  bears  us  out  when  w^e  attempt 
to  speak  of  a  "world  of  pleasures"  and  a  "world  of  utilities", 
or  a  "world  of  virtues"  and  a  "world  of  duties."  In  spite 
of  the  difficulties  that  obstruct  the  path  to  philosophic  world- 
hood,  the  principle  of  value  seems  able  to  detach  itself  from 
the  immediate  consciousness  of  man  and  assume  a  position 
in  the  ethical  world-order,  and  the  many  questions  provoked 
by  this  view  only  serve  to  increase  our  confidence  in  the 
category  of  value. 

To  effect  the  ontological  construction  of  the  value-prin- 
ciple, our  thought  must  advance  from  the  ideal  of  inness, 
which  has  enabled  us  to  isolate  value  in  consciousness  and 
place  it  in  the  realm  of  ethics,  to  the  totality  of  value  in  the 
world  of  humanity.  To  be  worthy  it  must  be  the  one  and 
all ;  that  is,  it  must  be  inner  and  universal.  In  the  instances 
of  Plato  and  Fichte  we  find  forms  of  a  moral  world-order 
produced  under  the  influences  of  classicism  and  romanticism 
resf)ectively ;  one  speaks  of  a  "world  of  ideas",  not  only 
metaphysically  permanent,  but  morally  perfect,  while  the 
other  lays  his  emphasis  upon  an  "ethical  world-order"  of 
striving  egos.     They  agree  that  in  the  midst  of  external 


336  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

phenomena  there  is  a  realm  of  moral  reality,  not  unlike  the 
world  of  values  now  under  consideration.  Reality  is  a  de- 
mand put  forth  by  the  consciousness  of  humanity  in  its  striv- 
ing toward  perfection ;  for  unless  our  values  stand  for  reali- 
ties they  cannot  be  binding  upon  us.  Fortunately,  we  are 
not  called  upon  to  create  the  world  of  values  either  by  in- 
tellectual positing  or  volitional  action.  The  world  of  hu- 
manity enveloping  us  is  the  world  of  values,  and  needs  only 
further  recognition  to  make  possible  its  interpretation  in 
terms  of  worth. 

The  world  of  humanity  came  into  clear  relief  when  we 
discussed  the  ultimate  nature  of  conscience  with  its  sense  of 
remorse  and  warning  against  resentment,  feelings  whose 
meaning  seems  inexplicable  upon  any  other  than  an  ontologi- 
cal  basis.  Without  re-stating  the  propositions  that  outlined 
our  thought  then,  we  may  simply  suggest  that  the  contrast 
between  personal  values  set  up  by  the  individual  in  some 
moment  of  private  interest  are  so  submerged  by  the  enduring 
values  of  the  human  order  that  man  cannot  escape  from  a 
sense  of  compunction.  He  who  attacks  this  human  order 
eoon  becomes  aware  that  it  envelops  him  without  and  per- 
vades him  within  so  that  his  whole  life  is  characterized  by  it, 
and  the  pangs  of  remorse  as  well  as  the  impulse  away  from 
resentment  reveal  its  inherent  power.  The  world  of  human- 
ity, however,  would  not  so  affect  man  unless  at  the  same 
time  it  was  a  world  of  values,  whose  security  was  being 
threatened  by  the  craft  or  violence  of  the  individual;  hence 
the  complete  explanation  of  conscience  involves  something 
more  than  a  metaphysical  world  of  forms  whose  influence 
over  man  would  be  naught  in  an  ethical  sense.  The  human 
coloring  that  is  found  in  the  order  of  humanity  is  due,  there- 
fore, to  the  fact  that  this  world  is  a  world  of  the  good  and 
beautiful  as  well  as  of  the  real  and  true.  Therefore  he  who 
chooses  the  path  of  rectitude  is  inwardly  inspired  by  the  idea 
that  he  can  sustain  no  real  loss  by  his  conduct. 

This  leads  us  to  the  idea  of  eternal  justice  implicit  in  con- 
science and  non-resentment,  in  rectitude  and  duty.  Indeed, 
the  notion  of  justice  seems  to  inhere  in  the  deeper  principle 
of  a  single  order  of  human  life  in  which  right  and  wrong 
shall  receive  recognition  and  reward;  for  assuming  the  unity 


J 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  337 

of  humanity  we  may  assert  that  virtue  and  vice  react  upon 
the  doer  of  good  and  bad  deed  and  effect  the  compensatory 
results  which  justice  seeks  to  promote.  Some  sense  of  identi- 
ty in  the  midst  of  the  world  of  individual  persons  seems 
inseparately  connected  with  the  idea  of  rendering  to  each 
what  is  due.  Such  a  recognition  of  eternal  justice  appears  in 
Vedanta  with  its  idea  of  a  single  Self  inhabiting  the  uni- 
verse, of  Platonism  which  cannot  relate  the  virtue  of  justice 
to  any  form  of  the  cosmos  or  any  class  of  men,  and  in  Christ- 
ianity with  its  fundamental  principle  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  From  the  standpoint  here  assumed,  it  seems  as  though 
this  inner  order  were  only  a  world  of  permanent  values  as- 
serting itself  in  connection  with  the  special  virtue  of  justice, 
as  this  is  naturally  adapted  to  convey  the  intrinsic  worth  of 
the  human  realm. 

By  means  of  eternal  justice  manifest  in  the  human  order, 
we  are  able  to  postulate  a  conservation  of  values  in  the  uni- 
verse of  persons.  And  hereby  the  vicious  individual,  who 
vainly  thinks  to  gain  at  the  expense  of  another,  experiences 
an  equivalent  amount  of  loss  in  the  form  of  ideal,  if  not 
real,  suffering,  although  he  himself  may  not  understand  the 
inner  meaning  of  his  unhappy  condition.  At  the  same  time, 
the  man  of  virtue,  who  fears  that  the  adherence  to  the  ideal 
may  cause  him  to  suffer  loss  in  a  world  of  seflish  purposes, 
is  made  to  feel  that  in  spite  of  apparent  injustice  his  position 
is  secure,  inasmuch  as  value  is  real  and  the  attempt  to  pro- 
mote it  cannot  really  come  to  naught.  Both  are  hemmed  in 
by  humanity;  both  are  subject  to  the  principle  of  value  as 
this  is  kept  up  in  the  midst  of  change  in  the  world  of  ap- 
pearance. It  is  upon  such  a  basis  that  ethics  may  counsel 
man  to  seek  virtue  and  shun  vice;  not  because  these  will 
immediately  reappear  and  reward  him  in  forms  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  but  because  in  the  world  of  human  reality  value  is 
so  conserved  that  virtue  can  never  lose  and  vice  never  gain. 
All  blind  transgression  on  the  part  of  the  malicious  person 
is  carried  on  in  defiance  of  this  universal  law,  so  that  the 
very  vehemence  of  vice  seems  to  be  occasioned  by  the  in- 
stinctive desire  to  overcome  the  detention,  of  reflective  reason. 
On  the  other  hand,  moral  skepticism  with  its  longing  to  sec 
the  realization  of  justice  in  the  world  of  things  and  persons 


338  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

has  at  heart  the  behef  that  value  should  be  conserved  amid 
all  the  mutations  incident  upon  individual  action,  a  belief 
which  thwarts  itself  through  an  innocence  that  looks  for 
such  realization  immediately  in  the  phenomenal  order.  Trad- 
itional views  of  morality,  like  hedonism  and  intuitionism, 
fail  to  account  for  ethical  faith,  since  one  tries  to  relate  all 
ethics  to  experience  where  the  other  contents  himself  with  a 
negative  view  in  default  of  a  proper  ground  for  moral 
striving.  , 

5 — THE  WORLD  OF  VALUES  AS  MORAL  GOAL 

In  the  world  of  values  the  human  soul  receives  proper  in- 
terpretation as  something  which  by  virtue  of  its  selfhood  has 
the  value  of  worldhood,  a  truth  which  unites  Vedanta  and 
Christianity.  Hereby  man  learns  to  know  himself,  that  is 
to  value  himself  not  personally,  but  as  a  member  of  the 
supreme  order  of  human  beings.  This  position  in  the  world 
of  values  invests  his  life  with  a  new  meaning  by  pointing 
out  his  ethical  destiny  in  the  universe.  Naturistic  ethics 
never  recognizes  the  moral  vocation  of  man,  but  sees  in  him 
a  creature  looking  for  immediate  well-being  in  the  percept- 
ible world ;  characteristic  ethics  knows  that  man  has  a  spirit- 
ual calling  but  itself  is  powerless  to  define  this.  In  the  idea 
of  value  we  find  an  explanation  of  both  the  being  and 
activity  of  man  in  his  human  consciousness,  and  are  able  to 
indicate  the  sense  of  living  and  striving.  The  valuational 
principle  also  aligns  a  goal  for  man  in  his  human  order. 
Conduct  is  a  path  in  which  desire  is  limited  where  duty  is 
limitless,  so  that  man  strives  beyond  the  one  while  he  can 
never  reach  the  other.  The  worth  of  life,  however,  is  a 
principle  which  adapts  itself  to  every  moral  act  just  as  in- 
timately as  does  pleasure ;  indeed,  value  is  more  faithful  than 
happiness  in  its  treatment  of  virtue  so  that  its  practical  signi- 
ficance cannot  easily  be  overestimated.  From  the  idealistic 
standpoint,  value  like  rectitude  rises  above  the  actual  per- 
formance of  morality  and  acts  as  a  norm  beyond  the  im- 
mediate power  of  the  will.  Hence  man  fulfills  and  yet  docs 
not  fulfill  the  demands  of  the  moral  law,  in  the  form  of  an 
ever-realizing  principle  of  living  worth  wherein  the  idea 
both  accompanies  and  transcends  the  work  of  the  will. 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  339 

The  world  of  values  enveloping  and  transcending  the  in- 
dividual is  a  just  metaphysico-moral  ideal  which  further 
makes  possible  the  element  of  ethical  progress  of  humanity. 
Hence  the  "transvaluation  of  values",  which  is  now  such  an 
agitating  question,  is  a  moral  process  wholly  in  keeping  with 
the  striving  of  humanity,  as  this  continuously  advances  toward 
completeness.  To  inaugurate  the  advancement  of  man  from 
nature  to  culture,  from  animality  to  humanity,  was  to  set 
in  motion  the  transvaluing  process  that  to-day  is  assuming 
such  an  acute  form.  The  forms  of  morality  that  wc  have 
employed  here  to  indicate  the  stages  of  human  striving  arc 
only  so  many  changes  in  the  valuing  attitude  of  the  humi^n 
spirit,  as  it  first  reposes  in  nature  and  then  resorts  to  charac- 
ter. Finally,  the  attaining  to  humanism,  where  value  is 
prized  for  value's  sake,  is  only  another  form  of  inner  trans- 
valuation.  For  this  reason  we  are  able  to  assert  that  trans- 
valuation,  however  untenable  in  a  world  of  concrete  pleasures 
or  abstract  virtues,  is  an  essential  part  of  a  world  of  human 
values  as  this  constantly  expands  while  it  enriches  its  moral 
content.  Our  very  conception  of  the  world  of  humanity  as 
a  world  of  values  permits  us  to  speak  of  these  values  as 
progressing  and  perfecting  themselves  in  such  a  way  as  to 
bring  about  a  unified  transvaluation  of  all  values. 

Only  as  our  system  of  values  assumes  the  form  of  world- 
hood  are  we  able  to  explain  and  justify  the  obvious  fact  of 
moral  change,  wherein,  ii  the  good  does  not  become  the  bad, 
it  tends  to  pass  away  and  assume  another  form.  The  prin- 
ciple of  value  is  not  embarrassed  by  these  changes  that  enter 
in,  since,  by  the  unity  and  totality  of  its  inherent  worldhood, 
it  makes  possible  a  manifold  of  ethical  phenomena  based  upon 
a  single  category  of  worth,  as  well  as  a  continuous  system  of 
transmutation  safe-guarded  by  the  sense  of  a  permanent  value 
in  the  midst  of  all  changes.  Pleasure  and  virtue  are  at- 
tached to  either  sense  or  reason,  but  the  conceptual  and  in- 
tuitive essence  of  value  makes  it  possible  for  this  principle  to 
have  permanence  in  the  midst  of  change,  and  to  be  real 
metaphysically  while  it  is  desirable  ethically.  In  the  mani- 
fold of  ethical  experience,  where  moral  consciousness  assumes 
an  indefinite  number  of  forms  included  under  the  head  of 
pleasure,  utility,  approval,  rectitude,  duty,  and  the  like,  there 


338  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

has  at  heart  the  behef  that  value  should  be  conserved  amid 
all  the  mutations  incident  upon  individual  action,  a  belief 
which  thwarts  itself  through  an  innocence  that  looks  for 
such  realization  immediately  in  the  phenomenal  order.  Trad- 
itional views  of  morality,  like  hedonism  and  intuitionism, 
fail  to  account  for  ethical  faith,  since  one  tries  to  relate  all 
ethics  to  experience  where  the  other  contents  himself  with  a 
negative  view  in  default  of  a  proper  ground  for  moral 
striving. 

5— THE  WORLD  OF  VALUES  AS  MORAL  GOAL 

In  the  world  of  values  the  human  soul  receives  proper  in- 
terpretation as  something  which  by  virtue  of  its  selfhood  has 
the  value  of  worldhood,  a  truth  which  unites  Vedanta  and 
Christianity.     Hereby  man  learns  to  know  himself,  that  is 
to  value  himself   not  personally,   but  as  a  member  of  the 
supreme  order  of  human  beings.     This  position  in  the  world 
of  values  invests  his  life  with  a  new  meaning  by  pointing 
out   his  ethical   destiny   in   the   universe.     Naturistic   ethics 
never  recognizes  the  moral  vocation  of  man,  but  sees  in  him 
a  creature  looking  for  immediate  well-being  in  the  percept- 
ible u;orld ;  characteristic  ethics  knows  that  man  has  a  spirit- 
ual calling  but  Itself  is  powerless  to  define  this.     In  the  idea 
of   value   we   find   an   explanation   of    both    the    being   and 
activity  of  man  in  his  human  consciousness,  and  are  able  to 
indicate  the  sense  of  living  and  striving.     The  valuational 
principle  also  aligns  a  goal   for  man   in   his  human  order. 
Conduct  IS  a  path  in  which  desire  is  limited  where  duty  is 
limitless,  so  that  man  strives  beyond  the  one  while  he  can 
never  reach  the  other.     The  worth  of  life,  however,   is  a 
principle  which  adapts  itself  to  every  moral  act  just  as  in- 
timately as  does  pleasure;  indeed,  value  is  more  faithful  than 
happiness  in  its  treatment  of  virtue  so  that  its  practical  signi- 
ficance cannot  easily  be  overestimated.     From  the  idealistic 
standpoint,  value  like  rectitude  rises  above  the  actual  per- 
formance of  morality  and  acts  as  a  norm  beyond  the  im- 
mediate power  of  the  will.     Hence  man  fulfills  and  yet  does 
not  tulhll  the  demands  of  the  moral  law,  in  the  form  of  an 
cver-realizing  principle   of   living  worth   wherein   the   idea 
both  accompanies  and  transcends  the  work  of  the  will. 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  339 

The  world  of  values  enveloping  and  transcending  the  in- 
dividual is  a  just  metaphysico-moral  ideal  which  further 
makes  possible  the  element  of  ethical  progress  of  humanity. 
Hence  the  "transvaluation  of  values",  which  is  now  such  an 
agitating  question,  is  a  moral  process  wholly  in  keeping  with 
the  striving  of  humanity,  as  this  continuously  advances  toward 
completeness.  To  inaugurate  the  advancement  of  man  from 
nature  to  culture,  from  animality  to  humanity,  was  to  set 
in  motion  the  transvaluing  process  that  to-day  is  assuming 
such  an  acute  form.  The  forms  of  morality  that  we  have 
employed  here  to  indicate  the  stages  of  human  striving  are 
only  so  many  changes  in  the  valuing  attitude  of  the  human 
spirit,  as  it  first  reposes  in  nature  and  then  resorts  to  charac- 
ter. Finally,  the  attaining  to  humanism,  where  value  is 
prized  for  value's  sake,  is  only  another  form  of  inner  trans- 
valuation.  For  this  reason  we  are  able  to  assert  that  trans- 
valuation,  however  untenable  in  a  world  of  concrete  pleasures 
or  abstract  virtues,  is  an  essential  part  of  a  world  of  human 
values  as  this  constantly  expands  while  it  enriches  its  moral 
content.  Our  very  conception  of  the  world  of  humanity  as 
a  world  of  values  permits  us  to  speak  of  these  values  as 
progressing  and  perfecting  themselves  in  such  a  way  as  to 
bring  about  a  unified  transvaluation  of  all  values. 

Only  as  our  system  of  values  assumes  the  form  of  world- 
hood  are  we  able  to  explain  and  justify  the  obvious  fact  of 
moral  change,  wherein,  if  the  good  does  not  become  the  bad, 
it  tends  to  pass  away  and  assume  another  form.  The  prin- 
ciple of  value  is  not  embarrassed  by  these  changes  that  enter 
in,  since,  by  the  unity  and  totality  of  its  inherent  worldhood, 
it  makes  possible  a  manifold  of  ethical  phenomena  based  upon 
a  single  category  of  worth,  as  well  as  a  continuous  system  of 
transmutation  safe-guarded  by  the  sense  of  a  permanent  value 
in  the  midst  of  all  changes.  Pleasure  and  virtue  are  at- 
tached to  either  sense  or  reason,  but  the  conceptual  and  in- 
tuitive essence  of  value  makes  it  possible  for  this  principle  to 
have  permanence  in  the  midst  of  change,  and  to  be  real 
metaphysically  while  it  is  desirable  ethically.  In  the  mani- 
fold of  ethical  experience,  where  moral  consciousness  assumes 
an  indefinite  number  of  forms  included  under  the  head  of 
pleasure,  utility,  approval,  rectitude,  duty,  and  the  like,  there 


340  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

is  a  single  value  represented  by  these  partial  principles  and 
reappearing  in  their  several  forms,  so  that  the  moral  subS 
seeks  the  value  of  pleasure,  utility,  approving  conscience  and 
duty.  Having  found  the  sense  of  his  moral  striving  to  con 
sist  in  value  as  an  object  of  possession  as  well  as  pursuit  man 
resigns  himself  to  the  world  of  values  as  the  only  en  W 
ment  able  to  contain  and  content  his  spiritual  nature 


IV 
HUMAN  DIGNITY  AS  ETHICAL  CATEGORY 

I— THE   DIGNITY  OF   THE   INNER   LIFE 

To  find  a  place  for  dignity  in  the  moral  life  of  man  it  is 
not  necessary  to  compare  it  with  value  for  the  sake  of  show- 
ing which  is  the  superior.     But  this  contrast  was  one  which 
Kant  could  not  refrain   from  making  as  will  appear  from 
the  following:  "Whatever  has  a  value  can  be  replaced  by 
something  else  which  is  equivalent;  whatever,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  above  all  value,  and  therefore  admits  of  no  equiva- 
lent, has  a  dignity"    (Meta,  d.  Sitten,  S.  64).       For  the 
furthering  of  this  notion  of  dignity,  as  well  as  for  emphasiz- 
ing the  humanism  of  Kant,  we  may  recall  the  famous  practi- 
cal imperative  which  rises  far  above  the  purposeless  categori- 
cal  imperative  of   the   autonomous  system.     ''So   act  as   to 
treat  humanity,  whether  in  thine  own  person  or  in  that  of 
^"ofh^r  in  every  case  as  an  end  and  never  as  a  means  only" 
{Meta.  d,  Sitten,  S.  57).     Had  Kant's  ethics  not  ignored 
teleology   but   had    rather   realized    the   possibilities  of   this 
human  imperative  it  would  have  emphasized  the  importance 
of  his  mission  and  raised  his  "Critique  of  Practical  Reason" 
to  the  level  of  the  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason." 

The  ontological  dignity  of  man  manifests  itself  in  the 
supreme  fact  of  his  inner  life,  whereby  we  are  able  to  as- 
sert, "Man  is  a  world."  Minor  ethical  theories  do  nor 
grant  him  such  worldhood  but  subsume  him  under  some 
law  whether  of  utility  or  moral  interest.  So  thoroughly 
saturated  are  \\e  with  moralism  that  we  do  not  remember  that 
man  produced  the  ethical  just  as  we  overlook  the  fact  that  he 
IS  superior  to  his  moral  maxims.  If  man  be  wholly  under 
the  law  his  dignity  is  lost  and  instead  of  being  a  whole  he 
IS  only  a  part.  We  cannot  wholly  moralize  man  since  his 
being  and  culture  involve  other  than  purely  ethical  consider- 

S41 


342  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

ations,  as  science  and  art,  religion  and  politics.  The  ordi- 
nary view  of  man  violates  his  dignity  and  makes  him  a  mere 
moralist,  who  lives  his  life  and  has  his  culture  only  by 
courtesy  of  the  categorical  imperative.  The  proper  view  of 
man  surveys  him  according  to  his  human  dignity,  whereby 
his  Inner  humanity  transcends  all  particular  phases  of  being, 
whether  in  the  realm  of  conduct  or  culture.  Hence  ethics 
must  take  its  place  by  the  side  of  other  forms  of  human 
activity,  as  these  all  lie  beneath  man  himself  in  the  supremacy 
of  his  spiritual  nature.  Man  owes  nothing  to  the  world 
that  he  should  seek  to  realize  himself  in  the  performance  of 
duty;  and  the  world  owes  naught  to  man,  as  though  the 
majestic  universe  existed  for  the  sake  of  satisfying  human 
desire ;  but  man  has  an  inner  dignity  which  raises  him  above 
the  phenomenal  world  of  things  and  persons  and  in  this 
superior  order  he  is  expected  to  realize  his  genuine  being. 
This  may  be  called  either  Sattva-Guna  or  humanity,  and  the 
true  dignity  of  man's  soul  consists  in  realizing  himself  as  a 
being  of  inner  rather  than  of  outer  life. 

This  view  of  the  inner  dignity  of  man  takes  the  place  of 
the  rationalistic  conception  of  Schiller  in  the  essay  on  ''Grace 
and  Dignity",  where  grace  is  the  perfection  of  sense  and 
dignity  the  perfection  of  reason.  Schiller  seems  to  postulate 
a  third  form  of  spiritual  life  above  dignity,  as  dignity  is 
above  grace;  this  appears  as  humanity  or  the  harmonious 
perfection  of  the  spirit.  Nevertheless,  the  category  of  dignity 
is  without  a  superior  in  expressing  the  inner  character  of  our 
humanity,  and  as  long  as  we  secure  the  internal  quality  of 
dignity  we  need  not  resort  to  reason  as  its  specific  determi- 
nant which  in  Schiller's  case  made  it  seem  as  though  dignity 
were  not  sufficient  to  contain  the  genuine  essence  of  human 

life. 

Human  dignity  assumes  another  metaphysical  form  when 
the  universality  of  man's  life  receives  recognition.  Both  in 
idea  and  in  act  man  has  sought  to  relate  his  being  to  the 
world-whole.  The  Mahavakya  of  Vcdanta  which  recasts 
the  world  in  the  form  of  Self,  and  the  value-injunction  of 
Christianity  when  it  weighs  the  Soul  against  the  world  arc 
august  indications  of  man's  universality.  For  this  reason, 
thought  and   action   must  assume  an   unwonted  largesse  if 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  343 

man  is  to  act  in  a  thoroughly  human  capacity,  if  he  is  to  be 
man  as  such.  Of  those  who  follow  the  general  principles  of 
ethics  and  love  virtue  for  its  own  sake,  as  of  those  who  arc 
inwardly  influenced  by  beauty  and  piety,  it  may  be  said  that 
they  are  leading  the  universal  life  of  human  dignity,  whose 
meaning  is  not  perfectly  clear  to  them,  although  its  intrinsic 
value  is  recognized.  They  afiFord  sufficient  evidence  of  man's 
world-life  even  though  they  evince  it  in  a  negative  fashion 
and  in  the  spirit  of  unconsciousness,  for  they  are  seeking  the 
ultimate  and  are  content  only  with  such  experiences  as  have 
an  inward  verification.  Man  can  make  the  world  of  human- 
ity in  himself  and  in  others  an  end  toward  which  he  strives 
with  the  one  impulse  of  his  life. 

2 — THE  DIGNITY  OF  ACTION 


The  minor  character  of  traditional  ethics  shows  itself  in 
connection  with  the  question  of  action.  Where  action  is 
given  in  experience,  and  man  is  viewed  as  though  he  could 
not  exercise  his  will,  it  seems  necessary  only  to  order  that 
action  according  to  some  particular  principle  like  pleasure 
or  rectitude.  But  this  naive  view  of  life  fails  to  ask  the 
question.  What  is  action  f  Just  as  it  takes  the  world  as  it 
finds  it,  and  assumes  life  as  a  matter  of  course,  so  it  here  ac- 
cepts action  without  question.  Major  morality  growing  out 
of  a  unified  view  of  life  is  guilty  of  no  such  neglect;  it  finds 
it  necessary  to  ask,  Why  should  man  act?  What  is  the  true 
nature  of  his  action?  Our  western  world  has  ever  assumed 
action  as  something  necessary  to  man,  but  its  point  of  view 
has  been  the  naturistic  one,  which  has  made  action  no  more 
important  than  animal  locomotion.  The  Orient  has  been 
almost  as  ready  to  decide  in  favor  of  inaction  as  expressive 
of  the  highest  wisdom,  and  we  can  no  longer  assume  that 
ceaseless  striving,  whether  in  classic  moderation  or  with 
romantic  earnestness,  is  the  only  method  of  living.  Too 
long  have  we  taken  action  for  granted  and  innocently  as- 
sumed that  only  the  life  of  labor  was  possible  for  man,  while 
a  far  difiEerent  idea  has  obtained  in  the  east ;  where  passivity 
has  been  the  rule,  activity  the  exception.  Hence  he  who  in 
a  spirit  of  wisdom  seeks  happiness  and  human  realization, 


344  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

strives  to  attain  self-less  inaction ;  such  is  the  spirit  of  Chinese 
conservatism.  Taoistic  nihilism  yields  the  following  com- 
ment from  the  writings  of  Kwang-sze:  **I  consider  doing 
nothing  to  be  the  great  enjoyment,  while  ordinary  people 
consider  it  to  be  a  great  evil.  Hence  it  is  said,  Perfect  en- 
joyment is  to  be  without  enjoyment ;  the  highest  praise  is  to 
be  without  praise."  (Bk.  xviii).  This  word  of  wisdom 
is  but  the  logical  outcome  of  the  Chinese  conception  of  heaven- 
earth.  Accordingly,  it  is  said,  "Heaven  does  nothing,  and 
thence  comes  its  serenity;  earth  does  nothing  and  thence 
comes  its  rest.  By  the  union  of  the  two  inactivities,  all 
things  are  produced.  All  things  in  their  variety  grow  from 
this  inaction.  Hence  it  is  said,  Heaven  and  earth  do  noth- 
ing, and  yet  there  is  nothing  that  they  do  not  do.  But 
what  man  is  there  that  can  attain  to  this  inaction."  (lb.) 
In  the  mind  of  the  Taoist,  the  Tao  stands  for  reality;  ac- 
cordingly it  is  asked.  How  does  one  know  the  Tao,  and  how 
may  he  rest  in  it?  The  reply  is  thoroughly  inhilistic.  "To 
exercise  no  thought  and  anxious  consideration  is  the  first  step 
toward  knowing  the  Tao;  to  dwell  nowhere  and  to  do  noth- 
ing is  the  first  step  toward  resting  in  the  Tao;  to  start  from 
nowhere  and  pursue  no  path  is  the  first  step  toward  making 
the  Tao  your  own — He  who  practices  the  Tao,  daily 
diminishes  his  doing — The  perfect  man  is  said  to  do  nothing 
and  the  greatest  sage  to  originate  nothing,  such  language 
showing  that  they  look  to  heaven  and  earth  as  their  model." 
(Bk.  XXII ). 

Oriental  inaction  appears  again  in  the  ideals  of  the  Yoga 
and  Sankhya  philosophy  as  portrayed  in  the  Bhagavad-Gita. 
The  Sankhya  school  exalts  a  rule  of  knowledge  and  seeks  to 
relieve  the  devotee  of  works  by  a  process  of  sheer  inaction 
(akarma).  The  Yoga  school  is  based  upon  a  rule  of  work, 
and  finds  in  activity  the  field  of  its  practical  scheme  of 
works.  Hence  the  Yoga  upholds  an  ideal  of  worklessness 
{naishkarmya)  which  is  realized  in  both  a  positive  and  prac- 
tical manner.  (Ch.  ill).  Further  consideration  (Ch.  v) 
of  the  problem  leads  the  author  to  declare  that,  in  spite  of  the 
apparent  differences  between  the  Sankhya  system  of  know- 
ledge and  the  Yoga  program  of  action,  their  doctrine  of  works 
is  practically  the  same.     Hence  Krishna  declares  (Ch.  V.  i ), 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  345 

''Casting  off  of  works  and  rule  of  worb  both  lead  to  bliss  • 
but  of  these  the  rule  of  works  (Yoga)  is  higher  than  casting 
off  works  (Sankhya)."     The  superiority  of  Yoga  is  further 
mdicated  when  the  Deity  affirms,  "He  who  is  doing  works 
lays  his  works  on  Brahman  and  puts  away  attachment  is  not 
dehled,  as  the  lotus-leaf  is  unsullied  by  the  water."  (Ch.  v. 
10).     Action  is  the  cure  of  action,  "for  without  undertaking 
works  no  man   may  come   to  worklessness"    (Ch.   in.   4) 
The  key  to  this  paradox  seems  to  reveal  itself  in  connection 
with  the  supreme  Self  in  whose  presence  all  work  is  set  at 
naught.     "But  for  the  man  whose  delight  is  in  Self,  who  is 
contented  with  Self,  and  is  glad  of  Self,  there  is  naught  for 
which  he  should  work."    (Ch.  iii.  17).     Where  this  work 
IS  based  upon  the  ego  rather  than  the  Self,  it  loses  its  merit 
and  man  fails  to  be  released  from  toil.     To  those  who  seek 
relief  from  particular  works,  Krishma  proffers  this  advice: 
Casting  of  all  thy  works  upon  me  with  thy  mind  on  the 
One  over  Self,  be  thou  without  craving  and  without  thouo^lit 
of  a  mine,  and  put  away  thy  fever  and  fight."    (Ch.  in.  30). 
The  essence  of  this  doctrine  of  work  seems  to  lie  in  the 
thought  of  a  perfect  deed  performed  by  the  soul  in  its  total- 
ity, rather  than  some  act  of  immediate  moment  in  which  the 
empirical  ego  engages.     "He  who  beholds  in  work  no  work, 
and  in  no-work  work,  is  the  man  of  understanding  among 
mortals— Free  from  attachment  to  fruit  of  works,  everlast- 
ingly contented,  unconfined,  even  though  he  be  engaged  in 
work  he  does  not  work  at  all"  (Ch.  iv.  18,  20).   The  man 
of  Yoga  thus  renounces  all  personal  desire,  relinquishes  all 
longing  for  the  fruit  of  action  and  reduces  all  works  to  one 
vast  spiritual  deed-act. 

In  the  New  Testament  the  plain  doctrine  of  faith  and 
works  contains  a  similar  truth  and  exhibits  the  same  longing 
for  freedom  from  prescribed  acts  that  the  soul  may  perform 

T^  iu  ^^^^'  ^"^  ^^  ^"^y  ^^  ^^^^^^  Christ's  criticism  of 
those  Pharisaical  men  of  good  work,  and  of  those  who  sought 
to  obtain  eternal  life  by  deeds,  as  well  as  St.  Paul's  violent 
attack  upon  the  works  of  the  law,  to  realize  how  impotent 
were  common  forms  of  activity  in  contrast  with  the  supreme 
inner  and  mental  deed  of  the  believing  soul.  The  feeble 
will  IS  unable  to  acquire  the  supreme  thing  in  life  which  is 


346  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

accepted  fully  in  the  innocence  of  faith,  even  at  the  risk  of 
antinomianism. 

3 — ACTIVITY   AS    CREATIVE 

Why  should  man  act?  The  answer  to  this  question  in- 
volves no  physical  principles  of  force  or  phychical  elements 
of  stumuli,  which  could  only  explain  why  man  does  act;  it 
concerns  the  essence  of  spiritual  life  itself  and  the  trend  of 
human  destiny.  From  the  standpoint  of  mere  action  no 
answer  can  be  given ;  for  the  inner  inclination  and  the  outer 
result  are  only  the  externals  of  that  creative  deed  which  man 
is  called  upon  to  perform.  Mere  doing  will  not  avail ;  and 
right  for  right's  sake  is  as  empty  as  right  for  pleasure's 
sake  is  blind.  Minor  morality  may  explain  certain  details 
of  human  action,  but  it  cannot  justify  the  never-ceasing  ten- 
dency on  the  part  of  the  soul  to  affirm  itself,  as  though  its 
life  were  possessed  of  a  value  in  itself.  The  mystery  of 
being  is  no  less  and  no  greater  than  the  mystery  of  acting, 
for  both  are  the  same  in  inscrutability.  Peer  Gynt's  Boyg- 
Sphnix  answers  the  riddle  of  being  by  saying,  **I  am  myself", 
but  the  riddle  of  action  is  left  unsolved  in  the  command. 
"Go  round  about"  (Act  ii.  sc.  vii.  cf.  iv.  xii;  w,  iv). 
From  the  abyss  of  nihilism  the  escape  seems  to  lie  in  some 
newer  and  fuller  conception  of  action,  as  also  in  some  other 
categories  than  those  of  good-virtue,  right-duty.  The  human 
deed  must  be  made  more  creative  as  it  is  in  both  rights 
and  religion,  which  to  ethics  may  have  seemed  to  be  legalistic 
and  superstitious.  Perhaps  the  essence  of  ethics  is  such  as 
to  forbid  the  positive  effects  of  these  companion  forms  of 
culture  which  express  themselves  in  court  and  temple,  but 
morality  must  abandon  the  abstractness,  the  aristocracy  which 
has  so  long  vitiated  its  efforts  toward  the  good.  This  may 
be  done  by  recognizing  the  major  morality  with  its  world 
of  values. 

The  creative  phase  of  our  human  striving  is  wholly  in 
accord  with  the  ideal  of  value.  Man's  moral  calling  con- 
sists in  something  more  than  affirmation  of  self  by  desire 
and  negation  of  self  through  duty;  it  involves  the  creation 
of  something  worthy  in  the  world  of  humanity.     Hence  the 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  347 

moral  commandment  is  no  longer,  "Do  this"  or  "Be  this'*, 
but  "Create  this,"  which  is  the  spiritual  self.  Values  can- 
not be  made  artificially  as  Hobbes  assumed  virtues  were  made 
by  compact ;  these  values  are  created  by  culture,  which  ex- 
presses the  striving  of  man  toward  humanity.  In  distinc- 
tion from,  nay  in  opposition  to,  pagan  culture,  Christianity 
created  values  wholly  new  in  the  history  of  mankind.  Now 
man  is  learning  to  strive  after  that  wholeness  which  the  an- 
cient possessed  in  immediacy.  With  antiquity  it  was  an 
outer  immediacy  of  form  which  accounts  for  the  marvelous 
achievements  in  plastic;  with  modernity  it  is  destined  to 
become  an  inner  immediacy  of  self -existence  revealed,  per- 
haps, in  the  art  of  music.  Major  morality  seeks  to  set  man 
at  one  with  himself,  at  one  with  the  world,  and  it  is  for 
this  unity  of  his  total  being  that  man  as  human  should  strive. 

Where  such  spiritual  striving  animates  human  creative 
endeavor,  it  is  carried  on  for  its  own  sake  as  though  with- 
out it  man  could  not  become  himself.  We  must  not  take 
action  for  granted  as  though  man  could  not  refrain  from 
movement ;  but  we  must  exalt  action  to  a  proper  place  among 
the  categories.  It  is  this  larger  form  of  activity  which  man 
is  to  assume  if  he  is  to  become  noble;  meanwhile,  we  must 
appreciate  the  largesse  of  the  life-problem  and  refrain  from 
turning  morality  into  casuistry.  Causal  doing  and  substan- 
tial being  are  categories  which  hardly  contain  the  totality  of 
human  effort.  Action  is  to  be  determined  in  the  light  of 
human  destiny  not  in  connection  with  some  immediate  need 
or  duty. 

The  unconscious  striving  after  totality  in  human  action 
has  produced  more  than  one  characteristic  life-ideal.  Plato- 
nic and  Aristotelian  men,  who  either  participate  in  the  Good 
or  cooperate  in  the  energy  which  is  directed  toward  Virtue, 
are  troubled  about  no  such  romantic  striving  after  whole- 
ness of  action.  Our  modern  moralists  strive  after  unity 
when  they  have  set  the  soul  at  variance  with  itself.  But- 
ler's division  of  human  nature  yields  two  leading  motives 
which  seem  to  work  in  perpetual,  mutual  conflict;  they  are 
self-love  and  conscience.  Yet  Butler's  manipulation  of  them 
is  so  adroit  as  to  bring  him  to  this  conclusion:  "Conscience 
and  self-love,  if  we  understand  our  true  happiness  always 


348  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

lead  us  the  same  way."  (Serm.  in)  and  that  which,  as  a 
metaphysical  principle,  brings  about  the  unity  of  opposites 
is  the  pagan  idea  of  nature  whence  they  spring  and  toward 
which  they  incline  by  virtue  of  the  maxim  of  life  according 
to  nature.  Kant  does  not  manifest  such  unity  in  his  doctrine, 
yet  he  reveals  even  a  greater  need  of  it  when  his  categorical 
imperative  insists  upon  unified  duty,  while  the  hypothetical 
imperative  consults  inclination  as  the  source  and  consequence 
as  the  outcome  of  action.  (Meta.  of  Morals  p.  37  st.  seq.) 
Now,  the  totality  of  the  deed  Kant  seeks  to  express  apodlcti- 
cally,  as  though  pleasure  and  utility  would  mar  man's  moral 
perfection,  and  the  energy  with  which  he  contends  for  the 
awful  imperative  is  really  a  modern  attempt  to  regain  the 
lost  unity  of  the  soul.  The  contrast  between  the  rigors  of 
our  modernity  and  the  graces  of  classicism  appears  most 
distressingly,  when  we  note  with  what  smoothness  and  in 
what  happy  connection  Aristotle  avoids  pleasure  and  utility 
in  his  easy  conquest  of  virtue;  for  it  is  not  in  the  study  of 
duty,  but  friendship  that  the  master  of  an  elder  age  asserted 
the  totality  of  man's  life.      (Eth.  Nicom.  Bk.  vii-viii). 

Such  a  yearning  for  a  fullness  of  the  moral  life  and  a 
synthetic  form  of  ethical  judgment  passes  over  into  the 
nineteenth  century,  whence  it  descends  to  us.  In  FIchte's 
reduction  of  all  thinking  and  being  to  the  primary  impulse 
of  self-activity,  the  wholeness  of  the  human  deed  appears 
as  a  deed-act, — Thathandlung  {fVissenschcftslehre  §  i). 
Unfortunately,  FIchte's  rigorism  does  not  permit  him  to  un- 
fold this  principle  in  an  ethical  form  after  the  manner  of  a 
humanistic  morale;  nevertheless,  the  wholeness  of  human 
doing  is  expressed  as  a  unum  necessarium.  Schopenhauer's 
niajor  morality  delivers  him  from  the  usual  snares  of  both 
rigorism  and  hedonism,  but  the  unity  of  human  doing  is 
tainted  perhaps  by  a  pessimistic  and  nihilistic  ethics.  Yet 
this  morality  of  negation  reveals  its  integral  character  when 
it  adjusts  the  individual  will  to  the  totality  of  will  in  the 
world;  and  where  art  calls  upon  man,  as  a  will-less  subject, 
to  contemplate  the  world-whole  {Welt  als  IVille,  §  38), 
ethics  imposes  upon  him  the  task  of  overcoming  the  world  by 
negation  of  the  will-to-live  (§60).  Thus  he  who  con- 
templates aesthetically  and  renounces  ethically  has  evinced 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  349 

the  unity  of  his  being,  just  as  he  has  expressed  the  totality  of 
his  doing.  The  same  striving  for  completeness  of  conduct 
appears  In  Spencer,  who  thereby  raises  his  standpoint  above 
that  of  evolutionary  naturism.  Conduct,  so  he  urges,  must 
be  judged  according  to  its  causal  connection  with  life  (Data 
of  Ethics,  Ch.  iv),  and  from  this  point  of  view  egoism  and 
altruism  may  be  reconciled,  inasmuch  as  they  participate  in 
the  totality  of  life,  which,  now  viewed  in  a  relative  fashion, 
is  destined  to  become  the  subject  of  absolute  ethics  (Ch. 
xv).  More  recently,  Eucken  has  sought  to  set  man  at 
one  with  his  spiritual  life  In  his  Die  Einheit  des  Geisteslebens, 
(1888)  and  Der  Kampf  um  einen  geistigen  Lebensinhalt, 
(1896).  His  ideal  of  action  is  in  the  form  of  Vollthat,  or 
fVesensthat,  which  Is  a  complete  deed  performed  by  the  Soul 
as  such,  in  independence  of  outer  forms  of  inner  faculties 
(Einheit,  S.  433).  The  destiny  of  human  striving  Involves 
something  more  than  either  formalism  or  dynamism ;  human- 
ity participates  in  Wesensbildung,  which  has  no  analogy  in 
either  the  aesthetlcal  views  of  the  ancients  or  the  physical 
conceptions  of  the  moderns  {Kampf  S.  126,  et  seq;  cf.  S. 
391). 

4 — COMPLETENESS  OF  ACTION   IN   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

Having  seen  how  problematic  is  the  essential  nature  of 
action,  we  are  now  in  a  position  to  judge  concerning  the  rela- 
tive completeness  of  a  human  deed.  This  is  to  be  found  in 
the  intellectual  nature  of  man,  or  in  the  degree  of  conscious- 
ness with  which  the  act  Is  performed  as  well  as  the  Intelligible 
purpose  held  out  before  the  will.  There  is  no  need  of  ini- 
tiating action  in  a  creature  like  man,  who  is  destined  to 
strive  in  the  realization  of  his  humanity,  but  we  are  required 
to  scan  our  conduct  for  the  sake  of  seeing  wherein  its  signi- 
ficance lies.  Upon  so  doing  It  appears  that  man  acts  for 
the  sake  of  thought;  we  do  things  In  order  to  know  things. 
Yet  in  both  thinking  and  doing  man  shows  himself  to  be 
more  than  his  Intellect  or  his  will. 

The  dignity  of  action  is  not  calculated  to  exalt  an  un- 
warranted intellectualism,  yet  it  decrees  that  action  shall 
possess  intelligence.     Thus  it  is  not  so  much  the  freedom  of 


350  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

the  will,  which  as  an  expression  is  redundant  and  paradoxi- 
cal, but  the  intelligence  of  the  will  for  which  ethics  should 
contend.  It  is  scientia  which  supplies  potentia,  and  will, 
instead  of  being  something  in  excess  of  causality,  is  of  an 
entirely  different  order,  being  intelligent.  Such  is  the 
notion  implicit  in  the  intelligible  Freiheit  of  Kant-Schopen- 
hauer. The  causal  category  and  the  conservation  of  energy 
are  not  violated,  for  what  is  added  to  the  total  performance 
IS  something  of  a  purely  intelligible  nature ;  and  a  recogni- 
tion of  unity  in  the  midst  of  the  cognitive,  conative  manifold 
puts  human  freedom  beyond  the  domain  of  dispute.  Aris- 
totelian energy  of  the  soul  according  to  virtue  encounters 
no  difficulties  inherent  in  the  categorical  imperative. 

With  all  the  attacks  which  philosophy  makes  upon  truth, 
It  IS  seldom  that  its  critical  weapons  are  turned  against  the 
good.  Yet  the  skepticism  which  invades  the  intellect  is 
likely  to  advance  to  the  borders  of  will,  for  that  which  blinds 
the  eyes  may  also  paralyze  the  activities.  Philosophy  does 
avow  Its  independence  of  the  moral  in  the  instances  of  both 
religion  and  art;  one  need  read  only  Schleiermacher  and 
Schiller  to  learn  this.  Art  liberated  itself  from  morality 
when  aesthetics  became  an  independent  science:  religion  as- 
serted its  freedom  when  it  was  placed  in  its  proper  field. 
Does  It  follow  that  culture  is  vicious  because  these  fair  and 
devout  forms  of  spiritual  life  have  serenely  refused  to  suc- 
cumb to  any  absurd  moralizing?  Love  and  beauty,  not 
works  and  laws,  prevail  in  the  realm  where  spiritual  life'is  all 
grace  and  truth ;  and  the  humanity  of  man  arises  only  as  it 
surmounts  the  moral  barrier.  We  are  thus  led  to  inquire 
concerning  the  value  of  the  good  and  the  worth  of  duty, 
ideals  which  can  no  longer  be  taken  for  granted. 

The  achievement  of  one's  inherent  humanity  is  not  by 
means  of  desire  which  is  privative,  or  through  duty  which  is 
negative.  A  complete  and  positive  method  of  life  is  found 
only  in  conjuction  with  a  third  order  of  being  which  culti- 
vates man  as  such,  or  man  in  his  human  valuation.  Hedonic 
self-realization  is  a  vain  attempt  which  confuses  egoism  with 
personality,  only  to  end  in  the  obliteration  of  the  very  in- 
dividual whose  selfdom  was  so  ardently  sought.  Rigoristic 
self-positing  has  a  similar  end  in  its  domain;  duty  effaces 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  351 

self  just  as  it  thwarts  humanity.  Man  is  man  in  only  a  nega- 
tive sense ;  his  humanity  has  not  been  attained  in  the  zeal  of 
his  doing.  We  wonder  whether  we  shall  ever  become  human 
beings,  and  look  with  despair  upon  the  plans  laid  down  by 
morality.  Suppose  we  do  realize  the  golden  rule  of  utili- 
tarianism ?  Shall  we  then  find  ourselves  in  the  shining  pres- 
ence of  the  world  of  humanity  ?  Suppose  we  do  obey  that 
categorical  imperative  for  whose  fulfillment  its  author  de- 
manded the  eternal  life  of  an  immortal  soul;  shall  we  be 
human  even  then  ?  The  unity  of  man  can  never  be  attained 
by  gratifying  desires,  however  wisely,  or  by  performing 
duties,  however  well;  nor  can  it  be  found  in  the  deeper 
moods  when  one  through  eudaemonism  accepts  the  universe 
in  its  irnmediacy,  or  by  renunciation  repudiates  it  altogether. 
To  posit  man  as  human  requires  a  central  assertion  on  the 
part  of  the  soul  in  its  unity,  for  which  reason  our  ideal  of 
human  dignity  suffers  us  not  to  surrender  our  inward  being 
to  the  eccentric  influence  of  naturistic  desire  or  rationalistic 
duty.  From  within  outward  toward  the  world-whole,  man 
must  act  if  he  he  is  to  achieve  humanity.  Such  a  conception 
of  world-work  is  not  idle  when  the  actual  realization  of  life 
gives  way  before  its  inner  idealization,  for  the  history  of 
humanity  has  shown  how  man  may  engage  in  cosmic  toil. 
This  is  the  sense  of  life  indicated  in  Goethe's  poem  when 
the  Spirit  tells  Faust  of  her  work  at  the  loom  of  time  as  she 
weaves  the  garments  of  God. 

The  question  concerning  action  not  only  involves  the 
dignity  of  man  but  his  sense  of  values,  and  in  deciding  the 
nature  of  a  deed  we  must  consider  the  inherent  worth  of  life. 
The  value  of  action  is  found  in  the  totality  of  the  deed  per- 
formed, as  well  as  the  inner  source  whence  it  proceeds. 
What  commonly  passes  as  action  differs  from  the  deed  of 
dignity  inasmuch  as  it  springs  from  something  immediate  as 
desire  or  duty,  and  aims  at  something  external  in  the  way 
of  result.  He  who  works  because  he  has  temporary  inclina- 
tion or  feels  immediate  moral  constraint  may  not  be  said  to 
act  as  the  wise  man  of  humanistic  ethics.  His  act  is  tainted 
by  interest,  whether  naturistic  or  characteristc,  and  he  is  far 
from  that  condition  of  things  which  the  Bhagavad-Gita  calls 
"the  worklessness  of  works."     In  some  such  form  of  inner 


352  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

and  universal  activity  vi^e  may  hope  to  discover  the  nature  of 
action;  certainly  we  may  assume  that  the  traditional  view 
of  volitional  activity  is  far  removed  from  the  ideal  of  human 
work.  Our  human  calling  involves  a  form  of  work  different 
from  instinctive  activity  put  forth  unconsciously  except  so 
far  as  its  immediate  purpose  is  concerned,  and  the  dignified 
work  of  man  raises  him  above  the  maxims  of  "greatest  hap- 
piness" and  "imperative  duty",  just  as  Plato's  philosophers 
were  raised  above  the  workers  and  warriors  of  the  Republic. 
To  follow  desire  and  to  perform  duty  are  common  forms  of 
activity;  genuine  work  is  rare. 

We  may  distinguish  between  the  minor  and  major  forms 
of  action  by  applying  a  simple  yet  convincing  test;  that  of 
the  intellect.  To  call  upon  man  to  act  is  trite  and  unneces- 
sary; but  to  bid  him  think  about  his  action  that  it  may  become 
unified  is  ever  necessary  in  a  world  of  ordinary  toil.  It  is 
this  element  of  cognition  that  invests  the  expression  "intel- 
ligible freedom"  with  a  meaning  unnoticed  by  Kant  and 
Schopenhauer  in  their  voluntarism ;  man  will  be  free,  but  his 
freedom  can  never  possess  the  intelligible  quality  necessary  to 
every  dignified  act.  Such  a  factor  of  intelligence  was  im- 
plied when  we  discussed  the  systematic  freedom  of  man.  To 
act  in  perfect  freedom  is  to  act  in  perfect  intelligence  accord- 
ing to  the  ideal  of  intro-activity,  and  while  we  would  be 
chary  of  intellectualism  we  do  not  hesitate  to  declare  that 
the  dignity  of  action  cannot  exist  unless  the  deed  be  an  in- 
telligible  one. 

5 THE   INTELLECTUAL  DIGNITY   OF   HUMANITY 

However  vague  our  inquiry  concerning  action  and  its 
necessity  may  have  been,  the  outcome  is  manifest;  man  acts 
for  the  sake  of  something  intellectual  so  that  his  work  as- 
sumes the  form  of  intro-activity.  Only  the  intellect  of  man 
is  able  to  measure  the  meaning  of  life  which  otherwise  would 
be  a  dream.  Our  human  dignity  forbids  us  to  exalt  the  un- 
thinking man  of  action  whose  life  finds  its  sense  in  deed,  and 
calls  upon  us  to  postulate  the  superior  man  who  lives  an 
mner  life,  wherein  action  is  only  incidental  and  experimental. 
Only  such  a  view  could  fulfill  the  ideals  of  a  tertiary  form 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  353 

of  human  life  recognized  as  Sattva-Guna,  as  the  "pneumati- 
cal  men"  or  the  humans  of  our  modern  systems.  Only  such 
an  intelligible  view  of  man  can  explain  the  continuity  of 
human  striving  that  culminates  in  a  world  of  inner  human- 
ity. Indeed,  the  original  impulse  on  the  part  of  humanity 
to  assert  itself  in  abiding  contrast  to  nature  must  be  inter- 
preted, not  in  a  will  that  merely  carries  on  the  work  of  the 
natural  order,  but  in  an  intellect  that  reproduces  this  in  an 
intelligible  form. 

The  conflict  between  faciens  and  cogitans,  which  so  rends 
the  soul  of  the  modern,  is  usually  ascribed  to  the  supposed 
weakness  of  the  mind  to  conceive  and  not  to  the  will's  power 
to  create.  Why  should  doing  be  better  and  more  satisfac- 
tory than  thinking?  What  natural  preference  exists  in 
favor  of  the  motorium  when  contrasted  with  the  sensoriumf 
In  psychological  circles,  something  has  been  done  toward 
achieving  unity  of  mind  when  consciousness  is  habitually  con- 
ceived of  in  connection  with  activity;  yet  the  result  of  this 
healthy  tendency  is  usually  accepted  by  voluntarism,  which 
seeks  to  defend  itself  against  an  equally  partial  intellectual- 
ism, and  is  not  credited  to  the  unity  of  consciousness  which 
ever  keeps  up  a  balance  between  its  opposed  functions.  The 
history  of  humanity  reveals  the  psychic  distinction  among 
men,  and  our  value- judgments  must  proceed  accordingly. 
Among  the  Greeks,  who  found  an  agreeable  mean  between 
conquest  and  contemplation,  appeared  contrasted  types  in  the 
persons  of  Xenophon  and  Socrates,  who  advocate  the  deed 
and  the  thought  respectively.  Alexander  finds  something 
companionable  in  Aristotle  and  world-conquest  affiliates  with 
world-contemplation.  Caesar's  conquests  are  parallel  with 
Cicero's  culture  and  in  modern  times  Napoleon  and  Hegel 
survey  each  other  with  mutual  contempt. 

The  question  concerning  the  ultimate  ideal  is  more 
ethical  than  metaphysical,  and  instead  of  looking  to  the  ac- 
curacy of  our  psychology  only  we  should  consider  also  the 
adequacy  of  our  ethics;  so  that  by  adjusting  will  and  in- 
tellect in  consciousness  we  may  proceed  to  evaluate  them  in 
the  field  of  moral  ideals.  Our  sub-moral  thought  to-day 
flees  to  voluntarism  in  psychology  and  activism  in  life,  as  if 
man  were  of  purely  motor  construction.     It  may  have  some 


354  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

sense  of  the  consistency  that  accompanied  the  life-sense  of 
antiquity,  but  it  is  more  inclined  to  exalt  the  heedless  dyna- 
mics of  an  era  urged  on  by  a  blind  striving,  as  if  a  live  dog 
were  better  than  a  dead  lion.  Where  we  surrender  our- 
selves to  the  ideal  of  activism  we  know  not  whither  it  may 
lead  us.  Schopenhauer  was  better  informed  and  his  advice 
to  seek  relief  from  servitude  of  the  will-to-live  is  significant 
and  involves  the  confession  that  will  can  neither  contain 
man's  being  nor  content  his  ethical  nature.  The  activities 
of  the  present  age,  bringing  about  stupendous  developments 
in  the  world  of  material  economics,  offer  painful  contrast 
to  the  weak  and  hesitating  spirit  of  spiritual  ethics  which  is 
content  with  traditional  notions  while  powerless  to  formulate 
new  ideals.  It  shows  that  the  Master  Builder  "cannot  climb 
as  high  as  he  builds."  How  contemptible  we  make  our 
spiritual  life  when  we  speak  of  Pragmatism,  seeming  thus 
to  rejoice  in  our  mental  blindness!  What  is  it  in  our 
moderns  that  makes  them  refuse  to  account  for  anything  in 
the  world  ?  Is  it  the  ideal  of  the  cavalier  reappearing  in  the 
garb  of  decadence,  or  the  sordid  contempt  of  a  sensualized 
age?  Apart  from  the  question  whether  intellect  or  will  is 
to  crown  the  life  of  man,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  our 
present  need  consists  in  an  ethical  movement  calculated  to 
raise  the  intellect  to  something  like  the  level  of  the  will, 
and  to  achieve  in  thought  what  has  been  done  in  blind 
action.  Since  Kant  we  have  been  undergoing  a  revolution 
in  keeping  with  which  the  will  has  sought,  not  only  to  free 
itself  from  intelligence,  but  to  usurp  the  supreme  place  of 
reason.  Such  voluntarism  produces,  not  life,  but  motion. 
The  true  picture  of  humanity  portrays  "still  life"  with  its 
calm,  its  eternity. 

From  the  foregoing  it  will  appear  that  thought  and  ac- 
tion are  not  to  be  subjected  to  such  a  contrast  that  one  shall 
remove  in  favor  of  the  other;  for  we  cannot  live  without 
thinking  or  without  acting.  The  more  acceptable  order  of 
arrangement  is  found  in  connection  with  a  vertical  line  where 
will  assumes  a  place  beneath  intellect  for  which  it  prepares 
the  way.  By  means  of  action,  working  in  both  negative  and 
positive  fashion,  man  becomes  intellectualized,  and  when  the 
inner  meaning  of  his  being  is  considered  he  sees  how  in- 


I 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  355 

complete  his  life  would  be  without  a  contemplative  view  of 
It  in  its  totality.  Will  works  in  an  interrupted  manner, 
buildmg  up  life  part  by  part,  but  never  doing  a  complete  deed 
able  to  express  the  whole  substance  of  our  human  being; 
mind  exerts  a  vast  synthetic  influence  whereby  it  brings  to 
a  unity  all  the  scattered  elements  of  our  life  in  one  judg- 
ment. Therefore  action  leads  to  thought,  and  thought  to 
being.  There  is  knowledge  in  the  midst  of  activity,  know- 
ledge of  the  will-to-live;  and  there  is  activity  in  the  midst 
ot  thought,  the  energy  of  contemplation. 

Such  an  ontogenetic  adjustment  seems  to  be  in  accord 
with    the    individuars    life.     This    begins    voluntaristically 
and   for  a  while   exhibits  only   animal   functions;   but   the 
development  of  humanity  in  the  person  is  coincident  with 
the   dawning   of  consciousness   and   the   preparatory  move- 
ments of  the  will  are  computed  in  the  perfected  activities  of 
the  intellect.     The  source  of  man's  life  in  will  only  sug- 
gests Its  outcome  in  intelligence,  but  the  development  of  the 
inner  life  gradually  reveals  the  change  from  instinct  to  in- 
tuition  as  the  hfe-work  of  contemplation  goes  on  within, 
buch  IS  also  the  natural  history  of  the  race.     Coming  fresh 
from  nature,  man's  earliest  form  of  life  is  marked  by  acitivity 
which  only  gradually  makes  way  for  contemplation.     This 
IS  the  product  of  leisure.     Even  nature  in  her  material  forms 
has  something  more  than  a  practical  interest  for  man  who 
hnds  the  world  to  be,  not  a  mere  field  of  work,  but  a  subject 
ot  reflection.     If  voluntarism  were  truly  representative  of 
man,  we  should  have  no  art  or  science  and  our  life  would  be 
all  deed  and  conduct  carried  on  without  assignable  purpose, 
btill  another  consideration  must  be  made  if  the  genuine 
purport  of  human  striving  is  to  be  comprehended.     This  is 
not  to  introduce  a  third  element  into  the  controversy,  but 
to  allow  a  principle  common  to  will  and  intellect  to  bring 
about   a  more   complete   harmony   between   them.     Such   a 
principle  appears  in  consciousness.    Only  in  the  consciousness 
ot  his  place  in  the  universe,  only  in  the  inner  consciousness 
ot  humanity  can  man  realize  himself.     Let  will  be  the  begin- 
ning and   intellect   the   end,   and   at   last  let  all   action   be 
swallowed  up  in  thought,  man  becomes  human  by  means  of 
his  consciousness.    A  plant  realizes  itself  in  its  organic  form, 


356  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

an  animal  in  dynamic  movement  accompanied  by  sufficient 
consciousness  to  direct  it;  but  man  passes  beyond  vegetation 
and  organization  to  assume  a  spiritual  character  in  the  uni- 
verse. This  he  does  through  thought-consciousness;  or  by 
means  of  such  inner  realization  as  is  able  to  unite  his  lower 
life  of  action  with  his  higher  life  of  thought.  "In  the  begin- 
ning was  the  deed,"  at  the  end  is  the  thought,  but  over  all  is 
consciousness,  as  the  inner  meaning  of  humanity.  Where 
will  realizes  itself  is  in  the  domain  of  intro-activity  whose 
essence  is  essentially  contemplative. 

From  the  standpoint  of  humanity  only  such  a  conclusion 
seems  warranted;  for  humanity  is  not  an  objective  realm 
filled  with  material  things  upon  which  the  will  may  exert 
its  energies,  but  a  subjective  one  where  the  activities  of  the 
mind  may  be  fully  realized  within  the  domain  where  they 
arise.  Humanity  is  not  a  perceptible  order  like  flora  or 
fauna,  but  a  consciousness  whose  practical  expression  assumes 
an  ideal  form  barely  conserved  in  any  given  condition  of 
civilization  or  culture.  Within  this  realm  of  human  values, 
man's  life  is  to  be  realized,  and  while  nature  claims  his  voli- 
tions, humanity  seeks  its  realization  within  his  conscious- 
ness. Since  man  is  destined  to  become  human,  by  means  of 
an  inner  realization  that  is  independent  of  natural  forms 
and  forces,  it  must  appear  that  such  a  goal  is  to  be  found 
in  his  inner  consciousness  rather  than  in  some  external  fact 
known  to  reason  or  some  objective  deed  carried  on  by  the 
will.  It  is  in  form  what  Augustine  called  sensus  interioris 
hominis  (De  civ.  Dei,  lib.  XI.  cap.  27)  ;  the  ancients  called  it 
reason  where  moderns  style  it  consciousness.  It  is  simply 
life,  although  that  term  has  an  endless  meaning  when  con- 
sidered from  within  according  to  consciousness. 

This  does  not  lead  us  away  from  activity  as  a  guiding 
principle,  nor  have  we  any  desire  to  abandon  the  idea  of 
striving  that  has  aided  us  in  interpreting  lesser  forms  of  the 
moral  life.  We  desire  only  to  point  out,  that  human  striving 
toward  consciousness  is  not  such  as  to  terminate  in  a  con- 
dition of  things,  wherein  will  triumphs  oyer  intelligence  ac- 
cording to  an  alleged  supremacy  of  practical  reason,  but  an 
order  of  development  according  to  which  human  activity 
turns  from  nature  to  spirit,  from  outer  to  inner,  from  multi- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  357 

plicity  to  unity.  Such  a  condition  of  mind  is  not  something 
immediate,  but  results  only  after  striving  with  both  nature 
and  man  himself.  Where  man  does  employ  his  will  for  the 
purpose  of  work  it  is  not  to  lose  himself  either  in  his  toil  or 
its  object,  but  to  test  his  powers  in  their  application  to  the 
forces  of  the  order  whence  he  come,  and  the  ideal  man  is 
not  so  much  like  the  ignorant  laborer  who  cannot  rise  above 
his  work,  as  he  is  like  the  scientist  who  touches  the  world 
lightly  at  certain  strategic  points  for  mere  purpose  of  ex- 
periment.    Such  is  the  ideal  of  activity  in  nature. 

6 CULTURE   AND   CONDUCT 

In  our  search  after  the  completeness  of  action  that  con- 
stitutes human  dignity  we  encounter  the  problem  of  culture 
and  conduct,  wherein  the  respective  values  of  intellectual 
and  volitional  activities  are  set  forth.  Any  inquiry  concern- 
ing the  end  of  life,  whether  in  thinking  or  in  acting,  must 
assume  that  the  inferior  forms  of  truth  and  virtue  have  been 
understood  by  the  man  who  would  realize  his  humanity,  so 
that  all  we  need  to  examine  is  the  nature  of  the  crowning 
work  which  characterizes  the  superior  side  of  man's  life. 
Thus  we  admit  that  as  man  must  have  some  degree  of  know- 
ledge so  he  must  also  possess  a  certain  amount  of  virtue,  for 
life  in  the  most  ordinary  sense  of  that  term  demands  that  our 
humanity  shall  exercise  the  mind  according  to  truth  and  the 
will  according  to  goodness.  The  minor  conception  of  our 
being,  therefore,  seems  ludicrous  when  it  seeks  to  legislate 
and  ^wt  us  moral  maxims  calculated  to  promote  the  activities 
of  thinking  and  doing  when  man  will  of  himself  pursue  these 
as  a  matter  of  instinct  within  and  necessity  without.  Nature 
beckons  with  an  iron  hand,  and  man  must  have  some  com- 
prehension of  her  course  and  some  sense  of  obedience  to  her 
laws  if  he  is  to  survive  as  a  mere  creature  only ;  so  that  we  are 
not  called  upon  to  choose  between  wisdom  and  virtue  whose 
presence  are  assumed  in  man,  but  between  the  culminating 
forms  of  life  in  either  contemplation  or  conquest. 

Man  as  such  has  a  life-work  to  perform,  and  our  belief 
that  man  is  by  nature  a  creature  who  must  strive  after  his 
realization  leads  us  to  inquire  wherein  that  realization  con- 


358  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

sists.  Aristotle's  immortal  comment  upon  our  human  acti- 
vities finds  a  suggestive  place  at  this  juncture.  "Are  we  to 
suppose,  that  while  carpenter  and  cobbler  have  certain  works 
and  courses  of  action,  man  as  man  has  none,  but  is  left  by 
nature  without  a  w^ork?"  (Eth.  Nic.  i.  v).  Our  human 
work  of  dignity,  wherein  the  totality  of  life  is  involved,  can 
be  no  instinctive  duty-doing,  desire-fulfillng  work  of  car- 
penters and  cobblers,  but  an  inner  and  universal  form  of 
activity  which  alone  makes  man  a  human  being;  and  in  the 
attempt  to  indicate  the  meaning  of  our  existence  as  also  to 
show  wherein  man  is  most  likely  to  be  successful,  we  turn 
away  from  the  will  except  in  so  far  as  its  contents  is  inteN 
lectual  in  the  human  work  of  contemplation.  Such  an  ideal 
proposed  and  yet  repudiated  by  eudaemonism  is  here  resumed 
and  in  conscious  departure  from  immediacy  and  in  deliberate 
abandonment  of  mere  work,  we  cast  our  vote  in  favor  of 
the  culture  of  humanity  rather  than  the  cultivation  of  the 
garden,  for  the  former  satisfies  where  the  latter  only  stupe- 
fies. 

Another  reason  for  believing  in  culture  as  the  goal  of 
humanity  is  the  persistent  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  world 
to  understand  its  being;  nature  denaturizes  itself  in  pro- 
ducing the  human  brain.  By  means  of  this  cerebral  device 
the  secret  of  nature  is  exploded;  for  the  human  under- 
standing reacts  upon  nature,  declares  matter  to  be  unreal 
and  reconstructs  the  world  according  to  a  mental  plan  of 
logical  law  and  metaphysical  category.  After  all,  it  was  a 
human  hand  which  carved  the  face  of  the  Sphinx  and 
man  holds  the  key  to  the  mystery  of  the  world  which  were 
no  problem  but  for  him.  Things  exist  for  the  sake  of 
knowledge  and  man  was  born  not  only  to  do  and  to  suffer, 
but  to  study  and  to  know.  The  constant  pursuit  of  knowl- 
edge either  as  a  means  of  happiness  (Aristotle)  or  as  a 
way  to  power  (Bacon),  the  intrinsic  satisfaction  which 
knowledge  brings,  convinces  us  that  the  homo  sapiens  is  a 
favorite  child  of  humanity  which  cannot  exist  without  him. 
Human  life  shows  how  man  w^as  put  into  the  world  to 
work,  whether  in  Eden  to  cultivate  the  garden,  or  in  the 
world  to  till  the  soil ;  but  the  voluntaristic  life-ideal  is  usually 
urged  when  the  intellectualistic  one  seems  to  fail  and  the 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  359 

life  of  labor  cannot  be  the  highest  ideal  for  a  creature  who 
can  accomplish  more  with  his  intellect  than  with  his  will. 

That  man  was  meant  for  knowledge  is  confessed  by  the 
greatest  of  voluntarists — Schopenhauer.  This  radical 
thinker  really  gives  us  more  than  he  promises  in  his  Wille 
zum  Leben,  and  perhaps  that  is  because  he  saw  how  man 
was  not  satisfied  with  the  acquisition  and  persistence  of  life. 
The  will  aims  at  something  more  than  life  just  as  it  seeks 
to  produce  something  more  than  the  man  of  nature.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  content  of  the  term  'life'  is  filled  out  with 
intellectual  elements;  where  the  will-to-live  is  denied  the 
will-to-know  is  left  undisturbed.  By  means  of  knowledge 
man  is  led  to  contemplate  the  world  as  artist  while  ultimate- 
ly he  renounces  it  as  moralist ;  the  triumph  is  the  triumph  of 
reason  by  which  the  will  in  its  blindness  is  first  quieted  and 
then  extinguished:  thus  the  outer  forces  of  nature  and  the 
inner  volitions  of  man  unite  to  evoke  human  reason  that  the 
world  may  be  understood  and  life  rationalized,  and  man  as- 
sumes his  place  in  the  universe  of  nature  and  humanity  only 
by  accepting  the  responsibilities  of  the  intellect.  The  action 
of  the  will,  however  necessary  to  human  life  it  may  be, 
seems  to  carry  out  the  plan  of  nature  in  making  and  keep- 
ing man  a  creature;  it  is  the  intellect  that  unifies  his  being 
and  adjusts  him  to  his  spiritual  center  in  the  world-whole  of 
nature-humanity.  Man  himself  may  be  in  nature  as  a  link 
in  the  chain  of  beings,  and  if  it  were  not  for  reason  he 
would  never  know  his  humanity  and  the  problem  of  life; 
but  the  day-spring  of  intellection  reveals  the  position  man  is 
destined  to  occupy  and  the  function  he  is  to  perform,  and  he 
who  becomes  aware  of  his  spiritual  vocation  trusts  less  to  the 
will  and  more  to  the  intellect,  as  "he  who  practices  the  Tao 
daily  diminishes  his  doing."  Only  through  the  contempla- 
tive work  of  mind  can  man  achieve  dignity. 

Voluntarism  can  give  only  the  shell  of  human  life  whose 
kernel  is  found  in  reflective  consciousness.  The  will  indeed 
does  have  some  genetic  significance  in  determining  the  general 
bent  of  human  life,  for  man's  earliest  forms  of  mentality 
concern  themselves  with  simple  movements  having  at  heart 
the  preservation  of  the  individual.  At  the  same  time,  the 
will  bears  some  relation  to  the  purpose  of  life,  in  that  man 


358  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

sists.  Aristotle's  Immortal  comment  upon  our  human  acti- 
vities finds  a  suggestive  place  at  this  juncture.  "Arc  we  to 
suppose,  that  while  carpenter  and  cobbler  have  certain  works 
and  courses  of  action,  man  as  man  has  none,  but  is  left  by 
nature  without  a  work?"  (Eth.  Nic.  i.  v).  Our  human 
work  of  dignity,  wherein  the  totality  of  life  is  involved,  can 
be  no  instinctive  duty-doing,  desire-fulfillng  work  of  car- 
penters and  cobblers,  but  an  inner  and  universal  form  of 
activity  which  alone  makes  man  a  human  being;  and  in  the 
attempt  to  indicate  the  meaning  of  our  existence  as  also  to 
show  wherein  man  is  most  likely  to  be  successful,  we  turn 
away  from  the  will  except  in  so  far  as  its  contents  is  intel- 
lectual in  the  human  work  of  contemplation.  Such  an  ideal 
proposed  and  yet  repudiated  by  eudaemonism  is  here  resumed 
and  in  conscious  departure  from  immediacy  and  in  deliberate 
abandonment  of  mere  work,  we  cast  our  vote  in  favor  of 
the  culture  of  humanity  rather  than  the  cultivation  of  the 
garden,  for  the  former  satisfies  where  the  latter  only  stupe- 
fies. 

Another  reason  for  believing  in  culture  as  the  goal  of 
humanity  is  the  persistent  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  world 
to  understand  its  being;  nature  denaturizes  itself  in  pro- 
ducing the  human  brain.  By  means  of  this  cerebral  device 
the  secret  of  nature  is  exploded;  for  the  human  under- 
standing reacts  upon  nature,  declares  matter  to  be  unreal 
and  reconstructs  the  world  according  to  a  mental  plan  of 
logical  law  and  metaphysical  category.  After  all,  it  was  a 
human  hand  which  carved  the  face  of  the  Sphinx  and 
man  holds  the  key  to  the  mystery  of  the  world  which  were 
no  problem  but  for  him.  Things  exist  for  the  sake  of 
knowledge  and  man  was  born  not  only  to  do  and  to  suffer, 
but  to  study  and  to  know.  The  constant  pursuit  of  knowl- 
edge either  as  a  means  of  happiness  (Aristotle)  or  as  a 
way  to  power  (Bacon),  the  intrinsic  satisfaction  which 
knowledge  brings,  convinces  us  that  the  homo  sapiens  is  a 
favorite  child  of  humanity  which  cannot  exist  without  him. 
Human  life  shows  how  man  was  put  into  the  world  to 
work,  whether  in  Eden  to  cultivate  the  garden,  or  in  the 
world  to  till  the  soil ;  but  the  voluntaristic  life-ideal  is  usually 
urged  when  the  intellectualistic  one  seems  to  fail  and  the 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  359 

life  of  labor  cannot  be  the  highest  ideal  for  a  creature  who 
can  accomplish  more  with  his  intellect  than  with  his  will. 

That  man  was  meant  for  knowledge  is  confessed  by  the 
greatest  of  voluntarists — Schopenhauer.  This  radical 
thinker  really  gives  us  more  than  he  promises  in  his  fVille 
zum  Leben,  and  perhaps  that  is  because  he  saw  how  man 
was  not  satisfied  with  the  acquisition  and  persistence  of  life. 
The  will  aims  at  something  more  than  life  just  as  it  seeks 
to  produce  something  more  than  the  man  of  nature.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  content  of  the  term  'life'  is  filled  out  with 
intellectual  elements;  where  the  will-to-live  is  denied  the 
will-to-know  is  left  undisturbed.  By  means  of  knowledge 
man  is  led  to  contemplate  the  world  as  artist  while  ultimate- 
ly he  renounces  it  as  moralist ;  the  triumph  is  the  triumph  of 
reason  by  which  the  will  in  its  blindness  is  first  quieted  and 
then  extinguished:  thus  the  outer  forces  of  nature  and  the 
inner  volitions  of  man  unite  to  evoke  human  reason  that  the 
world  may  be  understood  and  life  rationalized,  and  man  as- 
sumes his  place  in  the  universe  of  nature  and  humanity  only 
by  accepting  the  responsibilities  of  the  intellect.  The  action 
of  the  will,  however  necessary  to  human  life  it  may  be, 
seems  to  carry  out  the  plan  of  nature  in  making  and  keep- 
ing man  a  creature;  it  is  the  intellect  that  unifies  his  being 
and  adjusts  him  to  his  spiritual  center  in  the  world-whole  of 
nature-humanity.  Man  himself  may  be  in  nature  as  a  link 
in  the  chain  of  beings,  and  if  it  were  not  for  reason  he 
would  never  know  his  humanity  and  the  problem  of  life; 
but  the  day-spring  of  intellection  reveals  the  position  man  is 
destined  to  occupy  and  the  function  he  is  to  perform,  and  he 
who  becomes  aware  of  his  spiritual  vocation  trusts  less  to  the 
will  and  more  to  the  intellect,  as  "he  who  practices  the  Tao 
daily  diminishes  his  doing."  Only  through  the  contempla- 
tive work  of  mind  can  man  achieve  dignity. 

Voluntarism  can  give  only  the  shell  of  human  life  whose 
kernel  is  found  in  reflective  consciousness.  The  will  indeed 
does  have  some  genetic  significance  in  determining  the  general 
bent  of  human  life,  for  man's  earliest  forms  of  mentality 
concern  themselves  with  simple  movements  having  at  heart 
the  preservation  of  the  individual.  At  the  same  time,  the 
will  bears  some  relation  to  the  purpose  of  life,  in  that  man 


36o  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

constantly  sets  before  his  mind  some  practical  goal  necessary 
to  the  work  of  life.  But  these  arguments  only  concern  the 
naturistic  or  characteristic  forms  of  man's  being,  for  they 
do  not  take  into  consideration  the  ideal  aspect  of  his  being 
or  the  totality  of  his  life.  We  do  possess  volition,  but  that 
is  not  to  say  it  possesses  us;  and  the  will  is  our  servant 
rather  than  our  master.  Therefore,  of  the  two  functions  of 
our  being,  the  conduct  of  the  will  and  the  culture  of  the 
reason,  we  may  assume  that  the  purpose  of  life,  while  it 
towers  above  both  of  these  in  all  the  supremacy  of  inner  and 
universal  spiritual  life,  is  expressed  in  terms  of  culture 
rather  than  by  means  of  conduct.  All  attempts  at  activism 
or  pragmatism  are  sure  to  ignore  the  universality  of  Man's 
spirit  and  the  ultimate  purpose  of  his  being. 

The  pragmatic  view  of  man  ignores  human  dignity  for 
it  reduces  man  to  nature  and  thus  envolves  a  reversion  to 
type.  With  all  the  vile  insinuations  of  Nietzsche  there  is 
something  more  heroic  in  the  "blond  beast"  of  Aryanism 
than  in  the  moralistic,  Semitic  beast  of  burden  who  is  in- 
different to  the  intellectual  value  of  humanity  and  encour- 
ages reason  to  turn  against  itself.  Pragmatism  calls  upon 
man  to  live  without  ideals  and  in  our  present  condition  of 
activistic  excess  it  is  crafty  enough  to  appeal  to  the  prejudices 
of  an  unsuspecting  public.  The  paganism  of  Aristotle's 
ideal  of  **great-mindedness" — which  adorns  the  whole  moral 
life  of  man,  stands  out  in  marked  contrast  to  such  Semitism 
as  tends  to  envelop  our  present-day  philosophy.  Still  more 
annoying  does  this  form  of  philosophy  become  when  it 
seeks  to  make  the  maxims  of  the  human  will  the  motto  of 
the  universe  and  looks  for  the  premises  of  thought  in  the 
postulates  of  action.  Our  universe  is  a  thought-universe, 
our  life  a  life  of  culture.  The  appeal  to  a  voluntaristic 
metaphysics  and  a  pragmatic  morality  only  veils  the  con- 
fession that  our  age  cannot  stand  the  light  of  thought  and 
self -consciousness.  We  abandon  the  stately  intellectualism 
of  Apollo  for  the  activism  of  Dionysus,  not  realizing  that 
the  god  of  passion  was  hardly  one  remove  from  sensuality. 
So  our  activism  in  both  theory  and  practice  binds  us  again 
to  earth  when  all  humanity  cries  out  for  deliverance  from 
sense  that  it  may  strive  toward  inner  self-hood.  Let  many 
run  to  and  fro,  but  let  knowledge  be  increased  in  the  land. 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  SELFHOOD 


Just  as  the  characteristic  view  of  life  with  its  norms  of 
rectitude  and  duty  triumphed  over  the  naturistic  principles 
of  pleasure  and  utility,  so  our  humanistic  ideals  of  value  and 
dignity  must  rise  above  all  these  standards  of  minor  morality 
and  treat  man  in  his  totality.  Our  treatment  of  these  other 
principles  has  shown  how  implicit  is  humanity  as  such  in 
every  stage  of  our  being's  progress.  The  paradox  of  pleas- 
ure and  the  essence  of  desire,  the  search  after  utility  and 
eudaemonia  are  only  so  many  imperfect  forms  of  our  human 
striving  while  the  psychology  of  conscience  and  the  ethics  of 
rectitude,  the  origin  of  freedom  and  the  ground  of  duty,  are 
inexplicable  except  as  expressions  of  a  self-perfecting  spirit 
of  humanity.  Thus  is  humanity  justified  of  her  children, 
who  should  not  seek  to  assume  the  highest  place,  as  though 
pleasure  or  conscience  could  rule  man,  but  should  rather 
admit  the  origin  and  submit  to  the  authority  of  the  spirit  in 
and  behind  them.  For  humanity  itself,  it  becomes  necessary 
to  assert  superiority  over  both  nature  and  man,  and  thus 
rise  above  the  world  of  single  things  and  the  world  of  in- 
dividual persons.  In  ethics  there  arises  the  problem  of  in- 
dividualism in  both  ego  and  alter,  and  this  must  be  adjusted 
to  humanity  as  a  system. 

Our  ideals  of  value  and  dignity  now  aid  us  in  determin- 
ing the  status  of  the  individual,  especially  after  the  culmina- 
tion of  the  discussion  upon  our  human  dignity  has  led  us  to 
see  how  man  comes  to  himself  in  cognition  rather  than  in 
conation,  whereby  we  are  now  able  to  intellectualize  in- 
dividuals and  attribute  to  them  their  proper  humanity.  This 
should  place  the  problem  of  egoism  and  altruism  in  a  new 
light  and  make  it  possible  to  grant  to  each  its  rights  by 
granting  these  to  neither;  that  is,  in  its  isolation  from  the 
human  order  enveloping  it.     The  problem  of  ego-alter  has 

361 


362  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

always  been  taken  up  by  naturistic  hedonism  and 
practically  never  by  characteristic  intuitionism,  and  that 
because  the  one  was  aware  of  the  moral  content  in  desire 
while  the  other  saw  only  the  form  in  duty.  But  by  what 
right  should  naturism,  which  knows  the  principle  of  indivi- 
duation  instead  of  genuine  personality,  usurp  the  office  of 
individualism  and  seek  thus  to  define  ego  and  alter  and  re- 
late them  to  each  other?  Our  criticism  of  both  egoism  and 
altruism  taken  up  in  PART  TWO  of  this  work  was  intended 
to  show  how  futile  is  the  attempt  to  construct  the  ego  upon 
a  hedonic  basis  where  self-assertion  is  the  meaningless  ani- 
malism of  the  ''Gyntish  self";  and  where  rigorism  de- 
sensualizes  man  humanism  re-spiritualizes  him  and  makes 
genuine  personality  possible.  He  who  has  Tamas-guna  has 
no  real  ego ;  he  who  finds  Sattva-guna  comes  to  self -conscious- 
ness only  to  use  this  for  a  higher  purpose. 

I — ^THE   STRIVING    FOR    HUMAN    SELFHOOD 

Through  the  ego,  humanity  strives  to  realize  the  inncss 
of  spiritual  life,  since  consciousness  cannot  complete  its  work 
until  it  has  achieved  a  unity  in  personal  existence.  For  this 
reason,  egoism  in  some  form  is  a  necessary  phase  of  human 
life,  and  maxims  counselling  the  destruction  of  selfhood 
through  self-denial  and  self-effacement  seek  to  take  away 
the  inner  sense  of  man's  being  and  are  of  value  only  when 
striving  for  selfhood  sinks  downward  to  the  world  of  nature. 
The  man  of  humanity  should  be  more  and  not  less  of  a 
person;  he  should  be  more  and  more  centripetal  in  his  act- 
ivity. Encouraged  by  Butler's  example,  we  feel  justified 
in  saying  that  genuine  self-love  is  so  weak  that  it  stands  in 
need  of  internal  furtherance  on  the  part  of  the  ego  who 
should  see  that  his  human  calling  demands  the  development 
of  a  personality  in  the  deeper  sense  of  that  term. 

Between  ego  and  humanity  there  is  so  close  a  connection 
that  it  deserves  direct  recognition.  When  we  turn  to  dis- 
cuss man's  sense  of  human  worldhood  in  the  social  order,  it 
will  be  time  enough  to  speak  of  man  in  his  sympathetic  capa- 
city as  altruist:  here  we  must  recognize  man  in  his  superior 
character  as  person  and  human  aristocrat.     Is  humanity  ad- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  363 

vanced  by  the  genius  or  by  the  mass?  Is  the  sense  of  human- 
ity created  by  the  beautiful  soul  who  appears  at  rare  inter- 
vals or  by  the  average  man  whom  we  have  ever  with  us? 
However  we  may  hesitate  to  exalt  the  egoistic  in  man,  we 
cannot  deny  that  humanity  is  not  to  be  evinced  apart  from 
some  form  and  degree  of  egoism,  for  without  the  individual 
humanity  is  empty.  It  is  only  by  means  of  self -consciousness 
that  the  inness  of  humanity  can  find  expression,  just  as  it  is 
only  by  the  self -positing  of  the  ego  that  humanity  is  able 
to  strive  for  selfhood. 

On  what  basis  can  man  be  himself?  On  what  founda- 
tion raise  the  structure  of  human  selfhood?  Hedonism  pro- 
poses an  "ego"  filled  with  self-love  as  the  most  obvious  form 
of  private  being;  intuitionism  offers  the  ''free  moral  agent' 
who  surrenders  his  interests  to  his  scruples  and  in  seeking 
to  efface  the  coarse  egohood  of  nature  abandons  all  hope  of 
finding  the  principle  of  his  inner  life.  Selfhood  is  a  human 
affair  and  where  man  is  allied  with,  first,  a  naturistic,  and 
then  a  rationalistic  form  of  existence,  he  has  no  chance  to 
display  his  genuine  self.  One  should  strive  after  selfhood, 
not  make  it  something  to  be  seized  through  sense  as  though 
personality  consisted  in  pleasure;  he  should  make  it  some- 
thing positive,  however,  and  not  imagine  that  it  could  come 
to  him  through  the  conscientious  denial  of  human  values. 
The  organization  of  our  inner  life  through  selfhood  involves 
both  elements  of  sense  and  spirit  whereby  man  makes  him- 
self out  of  the  materials  nature  affords  him.  Such  a  self 
is  a  genuine  ego  whose  character  is  not  empirical  but  intelligi- 
ble, not  outward  assertion  but  inward  affirmation. 

The  path  to  personality  has  ever  been  obstructed  by  the 
minor  systems  of  egoism  and  altruism.  Both  seek  to  exalt 
the  empirical  person  who  is  viewed  first  from  within  as  ego, 
without  as  alter ;  as  a  result  the  dignity  of  man  as  an  intelligi- 
ble person  is  violated  and  the  hope  of  achieving  selfhood  is 
lost.  This  condition  of  affairs  produces  a  false  disjunction 
and  when  man  is  placed  between  egoism  and  altruism  he  can- 
not make  a  satisfactory  choice  of  character  in  terms  of  self- 
love  or  self-sacrifice.  The  dignity  of  humanity  must  be 
established  in  some  other  way  than  the  empirical  one  pro- 
posed by  the  hedonistic  school,  for  one  cannot  love  himself 


364  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

or  deny  himself  unless  there  be  some  genuine  selfhood  as  the 
basis  of  operations.  To  evince  the  self  in  mankind  it  be- 
comes necessary  to  effect  a  greater  contrast  than  that  between 
ego  and  alter ;  spirit  must  be  set  of?  against  matter,  humanity 
against  nature  and  personality  delivered  from  the  fetters  of 
conventionality.  This  is  the  only  consistent  meaning  that 
attaches  to  the  morality  of  genius  whereby  artistic  souls,  who 
are  raised  above  nature  find  ethical  recognition.  Man  was 
meant  to  be  superior  and  he  who  can  demonstrate  the  calling 
of  humanity  is  of  more  value  than  a  whole  race  of  altruists 
who  only  continue  the  common  work  of  the  world  without 
imparting  any  spiritual  significance.  The  genius  teaches 
us  that  man  was  meant  for  humanity,  for  genius  is  passion 
for  humanity  and  deserves  to  be  fostered  by  a  moral  system 
which  has  at  heart  the  total  interests  of  human  life. 

The  dignity  of  humanity  thus  demands  something  more 
than  egoism  and  altruism;  it  raises  man  above  a  life  accord- 
ing to  nature  and  a  life  according  to  reason,  to  a  life  in 
humanity.  Here  a  full  personality,  conscious  of  its  position 
in  the  world,  alive  to  the  problem  of  its  life,  transcends  all 
the  pettiness  of  ego  and  alter  and  seeks  humanity  as  its  goal. 
Man's  supreme  concern  is  neither  for  the  self  or  the  not- 
self  but  for  humanity  as  such,  and  the  great  commandment 
is  not,  Love  thyself,  or,  Love  the  not-self,  but.  Cultivate 
humanity.  The  alter-ego  will  receive  his  share  of  considera- 
tion at  the  hands  of  the  self-realizing  ego,  for  one  cannot 
fulfill  his  mission  in  a  world  of  humanity  without  persons; 
but  the  alter  will  lose  his  private  characteristics  and  stand 
for  humanity,  as  the  model  reveals  the  characteristics  of  the 
human  form;  and  he  who  loves  another  and  furthers  his 
interests  is  devoting  himself  to  the  intelligible  ego  who  re- 
presents the  universal,  rather  than  to  the  empirical  ego  who 
stands  only  for  the  individual.  By  serving  a  few  characteris- 
tic souls  in  a  symbolic  fashion  man  fulfills  his  duty  toward 
humanity  without  sinking  into  either  egoism  or  altruism: 
In  the  dialectic  of  Fichte  this  symbolic  relation  between  one 
person  and  another  assumes  the  systematic  form  of  Ich  and 
Nicht-Ich  where,  from  the  physical  point  of  view  the  exter- 
nal world  is  only  a  non-ego.  Yet  it  is  only  by  accomodation 
that  the  individual  person  assumes  the  role  of  the  Ich  whose 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  365 

essence  is  that  of  the  objective  Self.  By  parity  of  reasoning 
the  alter  may  become  representative  of  the  whole  Nicht-Ich 
as  he  does  in  the  ethics  of  Fichte,  as  shown  in  the  Rechtshpil- 
osophie.  Hence  the  ego  plays  the  part  of  the  Ich,  the  alter 
that  of  the  Nicht-Ich,  just  as  the  character  of  Cain  is  deter- 
mined altogether  by  his  attitude  toward  Abel,  that  of  Judas 
by  his  treatment  of  Jesus.  In  a  genuine  moral  relation  the 
ordinary  relations  of  person  to  person  give  way  to  a  decisive 
conflict  between  one  phase  of  humanity  and  another. 

Let  it  not  be  thought  that,  with  all  its  warmth  of  hu- 
manitarian interest,  Christianity  counsels  altruism  as  such. 
The  love  of  the  world-neighbor  and  the  special  duty  toward 
the  needy  are  made  a  part  of  this  practical  system  of  spirit- 
ual life,  but  the  idea  of  redemption  so  towers  above  these 
details  that  the  altruistic  is  lost  sight  of.  Christianity  finds 
no  abiding  difficulty  in  the  egoistic  problem,  because  as  a 
form  of  spiritual  religion  it  seeks  to  discover  the  individual 
value  of  the  soul  and  has  no  interest  in  the  alter-ego  when 
he  is  surveyed  in  a  purely  naturistic  way.  Some  such  idea 
must  have  inspired  Butler  to  postulate  ''reasonable  self-love" 
as  a  principle  of  ethics  about  on  the  same  level  as  conscience. 
But  behind  the  lofty  method  of  the  Gospel  lies  the  thought 
that  the  empirical  world  of  persons,  like  the  phenomenal 
world  of  things,  is  not  the  world  of  loves  and  values,  so  that 
no  amount  of  altruism  can  atone  for  want  of  spiritual  in- 
sight and  purpose.  Practical  benevolence  is  only  the  sign  of 
the  abiding  love  of  spirit,  which  ever  turns  from  c^tXcw  to 
dXairam)  and  raises  man  above  ego  and  alter  in  a  central  and 
consuming  love  of  the  All,  or  what  Schleiermacher  called 
"sense  and  taste  for  the  Infinite"  (Redeniiber  die  Religion, 

II). 

2 — CONTEMPLATIVE    EGOISM 


The  striving  for  selfhood  is  an  internal  movement  in 
which  the  individual  seeks  to  adjust  himself  as  person  to  the 
human  world-order.  Having  seen  how  just  and  necessary 
is  a  certain  kind  of  egoism  we  must  further  inquire  how  man 
can  best  attain  to  selfhood,  and  thus  acquire  human  dignity. 
Our  conception  of  man's  dignity  decides  this  for  us  and  we 
arc  thus  led  to  assume  that  it  is  through  intellect  rather 


366  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

than  through  will  that  man  becomes  himself  and  attains  to 
selfhood,  so  that  his  egoism  is  the  egoism  of  contemplation, 
not  that  of  conquest.  The  ego  of  action  cannot  bear  the 
burden  of  selfhood,  and  the  ontological  dignity  of  man 
makes  necessary  an  ego  capable  of  self -consciousness  and 
self-affirmation  in  the  form  of  spiritual  life.  The  intellect 
furnishes  apparently  the  only  secure  means  of  realizing  per- 
sonality and  when,  in  response  to  Kant's  injunction  we  seek 
to  treat  the  humanity  of  both  ego  and  alter  as  an  end,  we 
turn  to  man's  mental  life  as  the  only  possible  condition  of 
such  an  achievement.  Because  of  his  dignity,  man  must  be 
a  person,  and  both  dignity  and  personality  are  found  in 
intellectualism  and  the  work  of  contemplation. 

Could  the  ego  be  looked  upon  as  a  finished  product 
existing  in  his  own  world,  our  contention  for  selfhood  would 
be  unnecessary  and  improper;  then  we  were  cultivating 
selfishness  indeed.  Genuine  egoism,  however,  needs  further- 
ance, inasmuch  as  man  in  his  impirical  capacity  has  not  at- 
tained to  the  stature  of  selfhood.  How  this  achievement  is 
to  come  about  involves  major  rather  than  minor  ethics. 
Right  here  we  must  observe  that,  since  humanity  has  habit- 
ually accepted  substitutes  for  self,  our  common  condition  is 
one  of  sub-egoism,  so  that  we  stand  in  need  of  strong  moral 
motives  urging  us  to  fill  out  the  proportions  of  our  personal 
nature.  And  this  can  be  done  only  by  a  deliberate  striving 
after  selfhood  as  something  to  be  desired  rather  than  dreaded. 
Religion  teaches  man  to  be  "innocently  solicitious  for  self", 
as  Hutcheson  (Inquiry,  Sect.  in.  vi)  put  it,  just  as  religion 
is  itself  a  form  of  striving  after  personal  existence  as  a  soul. 
Culture  has  the  same  motive  and  while  not  a  mere  culte  du 
moi,  in  the  sense  of  Maurice  Barres,  it  is  no  impersonal 
ideal.  Experience  shows  how  deeply  mankind  stands  in  need 
of  the  free,  creative  personality,  who  works  as  he  lives,  from 
within.  Such  an  ideal  is  the  crystal izat ion  of  human  striving 
after  selfhood. 

The  naturistic  attempt  at  selfhood  was  seen  to  be  a  fail- 
ure, inasmuch  as  it  was  based  upon  sense  in  the  vain  attempt 
to  rear  personality  upon  the  foundation  of  pleasure.  Thus  it 
detached  a  solitaire,  but  could  not  develop  a  spirit ;  it  cele- 
brated the  dance  of  Dionysius,  but  did  not  worship  Apollo. 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  367 

Nevertheless,  naturism  deserves  credit  for  having  inaugu- 
rated egoism  with  its  suggestion  that  the  person  as  such  is  of 
value  and  worthy  of  consideration  In  thought,  and  since  man's 
life  and  man's  world  are  apprehended  through  his  own  ego 
the  doctrine  of  self-love  is  to  be  blamed  for  its  bluntness  and 
superficiality  only.  Since  man  is  destined  for  full  humanity, 
egoism  is  of  worth  in  showing  how  inherent  in  the  human 
order  is  the  unit  of  personality.  Yet  there  is  a  more  ac- 
ceptable form  of  the  doctrine  consisting  in  intellect  rather 
than  sense ;  it  is  the  contemplative  form  of  selfhood  in  which 
humanity  realizes  itself  with  the  highest  degree  of  perfec- 
tion. The  striving  of  humanity  to  attain  realization  is  for- 
ever balked  unless  the  individual  be  allowed  to  represent  the 
world  in  his  thought  and  react  upon  it  according  to  his  will. 
All  genuine  culture  thus  aims  to  emancipate  the  individual 
that  the  mystery  of  the  world  and  the  enigma  of  life  may 
be  presented  directly  to  a  self-conscious  subject  of  con- 
templation. This  thinking  ego  is  worthy  of  more  considera- 
tion and  capable  of  more  development  than  the  feeling  ego, 
which  seeks  to  receive  the  world  directly  as  to  content  with- 
out attempting  to  analyze  it  according  to  form. 

Humanistic  egoism  reduces  hedonic  egoism  to  a  mere 
shadow,  for  in  its  intellectual  form  it  involves  the  metaphy- 
sical in  man.  Just  as  the  Christian  Soul  is  weighed  against 
the  value  of  the  world-whole,  so  the  Vedantist  Self  is  sub- 
stituted for  the  entire  universe,  and  in  their  combined  forms 
of  Semitic  and  Aryan  culture  they  present  a  perfect  view  of 
human  selfhood.  Vedanta  looks  upon  the  world  as  though 
it  were  pervaded  by  the  Self,  and  that  so  perfectly  that  all 
reality  becomes  mental  and  the  "That"  becomes  a  "Thou", 
the  "Tat"  a  "Tvam",  in  the  great  text,  ''Tat  tvam  asi/' 
There  are  no  separate  individual  things,  but  a  supreme  Self 
alone  exists ;  there  are  no  isolated  persons  but  one  indwelling 
Self.  He  who  would  know  nature  and  humanity  must  view 
it  through  the  Self  in  which  all  phenomena,  physical  and 
psychical,  are  centered.  By  such  metaphysical  means  human- 
ity appears  in  the  crystallized  form  of  selfhood,  and  the 
striving  after  self-realization,  instead  of  being  egoistic,  be- 
comes humanistic,  for  it  urges  the  individual  to  achieve  his 
inherent  humanity  in  the  Apollonian  sense. 


368  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

The  objective  ego  upon  whose  basis  personality  Is  to  be 
erected  makes  possible  the  selfhood  of  spirit  in  contrast  to 
the  selfhood  of  sense ;  hereby  man  learns  to  distinguish  him- 
self from  the  natural  order  about  him  as  well  as  from  the 
inner  order  of  phenomena.  As  Heraclitus  sought  diligently 
to  find  himself,  so  Socrates,  in  contrast  to  the  Sophistical 
Protagoras,  tried  to  put  selfhood  upon  the  basis  of  know- 
ledge. To  tiie  hedonist  these  speculative  attempts  at  egoism 
come  as  a  surprise  since  the  hedonist  can  conceive  of  the 
personality  of  man  as  a  mere  matter  of  private  interest. 
Upon  the  basis  of  the  Christian  "Soul",  Augustine  sought  a 
principle  of  inner  experience  in  the  self -consciousness  and 
self-existence  of  the  individual  {Beata  vita,  7;  Solil.  II,  i), 
while  Descartes  repeats  the  argument  for  selfhood  in  the 
well-known  cogito,  ego  sum.  Belief  in  the  self  as  a  specula- 
tive principle  was  furthered  by  Fichte's  self-positing  **Ich** 
whose  essence  consists  in  striving  in  opposition  to  the  world. 
Such  dialectics  prepare  the  way  for  a  genuine  view  of  self- 
hood and  indicate  that  the  hedonic  self  of  sense  furnishes  no 
basis  for  human  personality.  The  new  ego  is  no  creature  of 
sense  but  a  character  of  reason ;  emancipated  from  nature  he 
asserts  his  human  dignity  by  affirming  himself  as  person. 

3 THE    EGO    AND    HIS    INDIVIDUALITY 

Just  as  the  hedonic  ego  cannot  maintain  his  character 
as  individual  In  contrast  with  nature,  so  he  fails  to  distinguish 
himself  from  the  mass  of  men  about  him:  hence  some  other 
than  a  theory  of  selfhood  In  self-love  becomes  necessary  if 
man  is  to  rise  above  both  natural  and  social  orders.  The 
dignity  of  man  depends  upon  individualism,  but  such  a  prin- 
ciple must  be  put  upon  a  sufficient  basis.  The  old  ego  of 
Immediate  rather  than  remote  self-assertion,  of  sense  rather 
than  reason,  cannot  endure  In  the  midst  of  criticism,  and  to 
be  a  person,  to  have  a  soul,  to  live  according  to  major  moral- 
ity, demands  a  superior  form  of  selfhood.  Schopenhauer 
was  right  In  p)oIntIng  out  the  fallacy  of  an  egoism  based  upon 
the  principle  of  individuation  which  deludes  man  into  the 
belief  that  he  is  distinct  from  the  rest  of  the  world  ( fVflt  als 
Wille  u   Vorstellung,  §  61);  but  his  counsel  to  repudiate 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  369 

this  phenomenal  self  without  a  further  attempt  at  person- 
ality is  on  a  par  with  his  renunciation  of  the  will-to-live  so 
far  as  all  life  is  concerned.  Man  must  live;  his  life  must 
be  human ;  his  humanity  depends  upon  his  selfhood.  Human 
dignity  means  distinction  and  upon  no  false  basis  of  self- 
destroying  altruism  is  man  expected  to  cast  ofiE  his  very  soul. 
The  naturistic  commandment  to  seek  the  greatest  happiness 
of  the  greatest  number,  and  the  characteristic  injunction  to 
act  so  that  the  maxim  of  one's  conduct  may  become  universal 
law,  are  inimical  to  selfhood,  and  for  this  reason,  if  for  no 
other,  we  turn  away  from  the  minor  morality  of  nriaxims 
to  the  major  morality  of  values.  No  hero,  no  artist,  no 
saint  could  realize  himself  with  such  restrictions,  with  ideals 
which  are  those  of  barbarism. 

Current  attempts  to  attain  selfhood  are  well-meaning 
but  one-sided  and  have  only  a  critical  value  in  Indicating 
how  un-indlvidualized  Is  our  society.  The  retreat  from 
convention  is  carried  on  well  enough,  but  the  reconstruction 
of  the  self  is  weak  and  indefinite.  If  Stirner's  individual 
("Der  Einzige  und  sein  Eigenthum\  1844)  was  first  in  the 
field,  Nietsche's  "blond  beast"  now  reigns  supreme  as  the 
egoist,  who  takes  up  the  case  of  the  noble  Aryan  in  contrast 
with  the  slavish  Semite,  and  carries  on  his  paganism  at  the 
expense  of  Christianity.  The  NIetzschlan  "bete  blanc'\is 
opposed  to  both  forms  of  minor  morality  as  he  sets  aside 
both  conscience  and  sympathy  In  the  endeavor  to  be  his 
own  heroic  self.  Wagner  has  used  his  poetical  and  musical 
genius  to  isolate  the  personality  of  Siegfried,  the  fearless, 
who  never  suffers  from  any  self-suggestion  of^  weakness. 
Ibsen's  Emperor  Julian  has  many  of  the  egoist's  features, 
and  at  the  same  time  he  awaits  the  arrival  of  the  "right  maii^^ 
who  comes  Into  being  as  the  "man  who  wills  himself. 
Such  characters  do  not  argue  for  self-love  or  against  the  love 
of  others;  they  simply  contend  for  humanity  in  the  dignity 
of  Individualism.  The  true  problem  of  self  as  well  as  the 
chief  anxiety  to  be  felt  concerning  it,  involves  the  petty 
egoism  which  is  more  opposed  to  major  egoism  than  it  is  to 
altruism.  The  ego  of  dignity  is  not  found  in  a  barrel 
of  self"  or  in  an  "ivory  tower";  he  is  not  contented  with 
mere  "Eigenthum"  nor  does  he  strive  to  be  a  superman. 


370  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

His  selfhood  cannot  come  to  him  through  mere  pleasure,  still 
less  likely  is  it  to  be  found  along  the  path  of  vice.  Julien 
Sorel,  in  Stendhal's  "Red  and  Black,"  and  Raskolnikoff,  in 
DostoieflFsky's  "Crime  and  Punishment"  reduce  to  absurdity 
the  egoism  of  Napoleon  when,  by  means  of  vice  and  crime, 
they  endeavor  to  assert  the  self.  These  are  false  attempts 
to  secure  egognosis  just  as  they  are  weak  forms  of  major 
self-assertion. 

Genuine  egoism  exalts  individuality  above  conventionality 
and  looks  to  the  person  to  dignify  the  inner  nature  of  hu- 
manity. Regard  for  immediate  welfare  in  the  natural  order 
vitiates  the  argument  for  both  egoism  and  altruism,  and 
makes  it  necessary  to  seek  human  selfhood  upon  some  higher 
plane.  At  this  point,  we  may  resume  the  question  concern- 
ing the  demand  that  life  makes  upon  us.  Can  man  be  him- 
self upon  the  basis  of  sense?  Every  individual  who  is  con- 
scious of  his  position  in  the  world  and  is  anxious  to  realize 
his  selfhood  discovers  that  neither  positive  sense  nor  negative 
reason  contains  the  possibility  of  a  personal  inner  life  which 
must  be,  not  simply  discovered  in  fact,  but  elaborated  in 
deed.  Man  must  posit  himself  as  a  person  whose  being  is 
independent  of  nature,  as  an  individual  whose  character  is 
distinct  from  society.  All  attempts  to  reduce  the  individual 
to  external  systems  of  law  and  convention  succeed  at  the 
expense  of  both  personality  and  humanity.  Yet  the  in- 
dividual succeeds  in  his  quest  of  personality  only  when  he 
abandons  the  desire  to  reach  out  in  opposition  to  his  natural 
and  social  environment,  and  strives  to  transcend  the  limits 
of  these  in  some  genial  work  of  human  conquest. 

The  conditions  of  the  highest  possible  selfhood  seem  to 
be  removed  from  the  will  and  allied  with  the  intellect,  so 
that  the  possibility  of  human  dignity  is  at  the  same  time 
the  ground  of  human  personality.  The  "man  who  wills 
himself"  is  not  the  genuine  self;  the  man  who  knows  him- 
self is  a  much  better  example  of  selfhood.  The  voluntarism 
of  Fichte  and  Schopenhauer  fails  to  furnish  us  with  the 
materials  of  self -existence  and  where  Fichte's  self -asserting 
*'Ich^'  falls  short  of  human  standards,  Schopenhauer's  will- 
to-live  destroys  the  individual  altogether.  Indeed,  our  egoism 
is  scarcely  distinguishable  from  Hobbes'  Leviathan,  who  is 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  371 

selfish  and  tyrannical ;  and  resembles  the  primitive  Cyclops, 
who  was  a  life  and  a  law  unto  himself.  Such  a  personality 
is  conceived  of  in  the  spirit  of  giantism  as  an  excess  of  natural 
force  which  elsewhere  had  gone  to  make  up  rocks  and  trees, 
the  genuine  selfhood  consists,  not  of  force,  but  of  freedom; 
his  character  is  not  conative,  but  cognitive ;  he  comes  into  be- 
ing as  the  man  who  knows.  Only  by  intelligence  can  man  be 
distinguished  from  either  the  world  of  things  or  the  world 
of  persons,  for  while  nature  and  society  have  more  power 
than  the  individual  they  have  less  free  intelligence.  Cogito, 
ergo  sum — such  are  the  means  and  end  of  human  self-asser- 
tion. The  will  can  only  raise  some  shaggy,  mountain-like 
personality  whose  genius  is  due  to  a  freak  of  nature;  in- 
tellect erects  a  Gothic-like  edifice  whose  upward-striving  is 
guided  by  intelligence. 

The  ego  of  dignity  is  therefore  the  man  of  culture, 
rather  than  the  man  of  nature ;  through  him  humanity  is 
realized.  For  what  are  the  claims  of  the  social  order? 
Chiefly  those  of  necessity  and  actuality;  society  exists  be- 
cause it  must  exist.  And  what  are  the  claims  of  self  ?  They 
are  those  of  the  ideal,  and  through  the  order  of  individuality 
humanity  comes  to  itself  in  selfhood.  Only  the  individual 
can  unify  the  world  of  persons,  of  him  alone  it  can  be  said — 
That  art  thou !  The  man  who  knows  has  a  right  to  be ; 
his  personality  stands  out  in  fair  proportions,  removed  from 
the  jealous  regard  of  society.  But  the  man  who  wills  him- 
self is  only  one  of  the  mass  suddenly  elevated  to  lofty  sta- 
tion, as  though  genius  could  express  itself  through  the  will. 
Such  an  ego  is  the  man  of  humanity,  the  homo  sapiens  whose 
right  to  exist  as  person  is  founded  upon  intellectual  justice; 
only  in  an  inner  mentality  can  he  be  himself,  hence  con- 
templative egoism  is  the  only  acceptable  form  of  individual- 
ized humanity.  At  the  same  time,  this  doctrine  is  put  forth 
for  the  sake  of  universal  humanity  rather  than  for  particular 
personality;  for  selfhood  is  not  so  much  a  private  privilege 
as  it  is  a  general  responsibility.  Has  not  the  whole  human 
order  been  furthered  by  the  selfhood  of  Plato  and  Caesar 
and  Raphael  ?  Could  we  ask  that  these  world-persons  should 
be  altruistic  and  devote  their  genius  to  social  service  ?  Their 
greatness  was  an  egoistic  greatness,  their  calling  an  indivi- 


372  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

dual  one,  yet  in  all  their  individuality  they  exhibited  human- 
ity as  their  characteristic.  These  intellectuals  may  not  be 
the  most  serviceable  of  human  individuals,  but  they  are  the 
most  significant,  since  they  show  how  the  one  humanity 
triumphs  over  inner  egos  and  outer  alters  m  the  dignity  ot 
man  as  such.  Such  a  striving  for  selfhood  may  not  adapt 
itself  to  the  needs  of  an  altruistic  theory,  but  it  does  not  tail 
to  satisfy  the  conditions  of  the  one  humanity,  inasmuch  as 
one's  genuine  selfhood  consists  in  the  achieving  of  his  human- 
ity We  need  not  resort  to  the  realism  of  William  ot 
Champeaux  to  appreciate  the  fact  that  in  a  Socrates  /iiimfln- 
itas  may  exist  totaliter,  while  it  appears  indtvidualiter.  A 
complete  person  who  knows  the  self  has  passed  beyond  the 
atomic  individualism  of  both  ego  and  alter. 

The  striving  after  selfhood  is  to  be  understood,  there- 
fore, as  a  genuine  impulse  on  the  part  of  inner  humanity 
whose  ideals  are  realized  according  to  individuality  rather 
than  solidarity.     But  this  does  not  involve  selfishness,  since 
geniune  individuality  tends  to  distinguish  man  from  nature 
rather   than   to   separate   him    from   society.     Nor   does   in- 
dividuality confine  man  to  a  narrow  field,  for  the  striving 
after  the  universal  in  the  self  is  sufficient  to  occupy  the  mental 
and  moral  powers  of  the  most  active  moralist.     To  realize 
one's  own  inherent  humanity  is  to  attain  to  moral  a^gn^^y. 
and  with  the  achievement  of  selfhood  as  counseled  by  Vedan- 
ta  and  the  Fichtean  philosophy  is  the  end  of  human  existence. 
With  a  richly  furnished  and  ever  increasing  inner  life,  one 
need  not  follow  the  score  set  by  society,  but  may  improvise 
as  prompted  by  his  own  personality.     The  history  of  ethics 
is  well  nigh  wanting  in  an  apology  for  egoism,  or  even  in 
a  clear  statement  of  the  meaning  of  selfhood,  and  the  termi- 
nology  of   the   doctrine   is   a  confusion   of   expressions   like 
*'egoist"  and  "solipsist",  "self-love"  and  ''selfishness",  "super- 
man" and  "individual."  ,.     j  ,       u 

The  true  dignity  of  selfhood  is  not  neutralized  by  the 
fact  that  society  is  a  necessary  factor  in  the  development  of 
individuality.  Goethe's  "Tasso"  represents  the  conflict 
between  the  claims  of  the  speculative  self  and  the  practical 
social  order.  The  objective  tendency  was  upon  the  sub- 
jective  one,   so   that   when    the    introspective    Tasso    meets 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  373 

I 
Antonio,  the  man  of  affairs,  he  confesses  that  he  has  been 
awakened  from  his  poetic  dreams  and  now  feels  himself  to 
be  a  double  personality  indeed.  (Tasso,  760766).  From 
his  rival,  Tasso  learns  that  one  does  not  find  himself  within 
himself,  but  out  in  life  among  men. 

"Inwendig  lernt  kein  Mensch  sein  Innerstes 
Erkennen;  denn  er  misst  nach  eignem  Mass 
Sich  bald  zu  klein  und  leider  oft  zu  gross. 
Der  Mensch  erkennt  sich  nur  im  Menschen,  nur 
Das  Leben  lehret  Jedem  was  er  sei." 

(Tasso,    1239-1243). 

The  veritable  solution  of  the  life-problem  consists  in  ad- 
justing the  p)ossibilities  of  interior  life  to  the  facts  of  exterior 
existence.  Failing  to  do  this,  the  individual  remains  caged 
within  his  egoism  knowing  reality  only  as  a  world  of  inner 
life.  But  the  exodus  to  the  outer  order  is  even  more  peril- 
ojs  for  one's  personality,  which  may  be  so  diffused  by  the 
extent  of  the  world  or  so  moulded  by  its  fixed  forms  that 
the  glory  of  selfhood  soon  departs.  Hence,  when  we  survey 
life  as  it  is  found  in  experience,  we  are  constrained  to  em- 
phasize the  individual  rather  than  society  whose  claims  of 
solidarity,  conformity,  obligation  and  the  like  have  been 
sufficiently  stated  in  modern  times.  It  is  the  poetical  ego, 
not  the  practical  non-ego,  that  needs  our  moral  furtherance 
in  an  industrial  order  which  strives  to  reduce  the  self  to  a 
servant. 

As  a  spectacle  the  ego  in  his  striving  after  selfhood  is 
only  a  beautiful  one  in  poetry  and  our  recent  literature  has 
not  suffered  from  the  story  of  these  supermen — Faust,  Brand, 
Peer  Gynt,  Siegfried,  Hauptmann's  Heinrich  the  Bell- 
Founder.  The  Vedic  picture  of  the  falcon-soul  which, 
after  having  roamed  about  the  air,  finally  folds  its  wings 
in  the  nest  of  Self,  and  the  modern  spectacle  of  a  cultured 
ego  climbing  the  ivory  tower  of  his  selfhood,  are  not  want- 
ing in  a  certain  sense  of  thrill.  The  self  is  not  to  be  re- 
pudiated but  revised  and,  detached  from  both  nature  and 
naturistic  solidarity,  it  is  to  be  asserted  in  terms  of  culture 
and  humanity.  There  is  a  self  and  the  Self,  and  our  human 
dignity  will  not  suffer  when  man  seeks  to  expand  the  minor 


374  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

ego  into  the  proportions  of  the  major  personality.  Human- 
ity is  not  to  be  realized  quantitatively  by  the  mass,  but  puali- 
tatively  by  the  individual.  The  will  then  assumes  a  higher 
form  than  the  will-to-live,  which  is  the  spinal  chord  of 
society;  it  becomes  a  will  to  individuality,  or  strivmg  for 
selfhood. 

4 — THE    SENSE    OF    HUMAN    WORLDHOOD 

It  is  only  the  ego  of  sense  who  stands  out  in  contrast  to 
the  world  of  humanity ;  the  contemplative  self  finds  his  being 
in  his  inherent  humanity  and  is  content  to  express  his  m- 
dividuality  in  mirror-like  representation  of  the  whole  order 
of  human  beings.  The  self  is  to  be  prized  and  cultivated, 
not  because  it  can  be  satisfied  in  sense,  but  because  it  can 
represent  the  world  in  which  man  finds  himself.  Now  the 
other  man  is  only  an  alter-ego  and  if  the  egoism  of  nature 
cannot  stand  upon  the  basis  of  immediacy,  the  inverted  egoism 
called  altruism  can  be  no  more  successful  in  the  cultivation 
of  sense.  He  who  has  found  his  self  in  the  world  of  human- 
ity is  not  expected  to  surrender  that  possession  for  the 
benefit  of  others  whose  life  is  still  upon  the  plane  of  animal- 
ity.  For  this  reason,  we  do  not  seek  to  pass  over  from  egoism 
to  altruism,  but  aspire  to  transcend  the  distinction  between 
them  by  postulating  one  humanity  appearing  in  both  forms 
of  inner  and  outer  personal  life.  This  can  be  done  by  the 
work  of  contemplation  wherein  both  ego  and  alter  assume 
the  office  of  manifesting  the  character  of  humanity.  Souls 
exist,  not  simply  for  service  in  the  world  of  sensation  or 
volition;  they  may  also  assume  the  form  of  a  spectacle  so 
that  in  contemplating  them  we  learn  to  believe  in  the  destiny 
of  mankind.  But  there  is  no  dignity  in  the  mass,  except  as 
it  is  reflected  by  the  individual  which  it  contains.  Dignity 
is  found  only  in  the  Self  or  the  Soul,  in  Apollo  or  in  the 
modern  Individual. 

Just  as  selfhood  was  shown  to  be  both  capable  and 
worthy  of  an  intellectualistic  view,  so  the  social  element  in 
man  makes  possible  a  cultural  view  of  life.  The  uses  to 
which  human  society  has  been  put  by  speculators  anxious 
to  prove  a  point  have  something  curious  about  them,  in  that 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  375 

they  suggest  that  the  world  of  persons  is  no  mere  natural 
order,  like  that  of  flora  and  fauna,  but  a  realm  of  something 
metapolitical.  Plato's  politics,  based  upon  a  tripartite 
scheme  in  both  nature  and  man,  uses  society  for  speculative 
purposes,  and  constructs  the  state  as  a  work  of  art;  at  the 
same  time,  it  suggests  that  the  diversity  of  forms  in  nature 
reflects  its  image  in  the  several  classes  of  men.  Leibnitz's 
"Monadology",  with  its  principle  of  continuity,  arranges 
its  spiritual  atoms  in  a  long  series  of  beings,  whose  many 
grades  of  consciousness  mirror  the  world  in  all  its  aspects. 
The  social  and  spiritual  conclusion  is  now  easily  drawn: 
the  human  order  with  its  manifold  of  souls  represents  the 
world  in  a  manner  more  complete  than  could  be  done  by  the 
ego  in  his  isolation.  Thus,  though  each  individual,  by 
virtue  of  his  participation  in  the  unity  of  social  life,  is  able  to 
intuit  the  world  by  means  of  the  human  reason  as  such,  the 
organization  of  culture  is  due  to  a  social,  and  not  merely  an 
individual  effort  on  the  part  of  mankind,  and  the  "human 
understanding"  is  the  understanding  of  humanity. 

The  vastness  of  nature,  from  which  man  is  constantly 
seeking  to  emancipate  himself  and  organize  his  humanity, 
demands  cooperation  on  the  part  of  the  sons  of  men.  Human 
individuals  are  not  merely  the  workers  and  warriors  who 
produce  practical  results  in  the  world  of  civilization;  they 
serve  also  as  philosophers  and  priests  who  furnish  specula- 
tive evidence  of  a  world  of  culture.  Phidias  finds  in  human 
bodies  the  typical  human  form;  Socrates  elucidates  from  the 
social  mind  an  open  opinion  whose  ground  is  reason.  In  the 
same  artistic  fashion,  humanity  serves  as  the  model  for  the 
poet,  whose  epic  cannot  be  completed  according  to  the 
principium  individuationis,  but  needs  masses  of  men ;  on  the 
canvas  of  a  Rembrandt  it  reveals  the  intimate  side  of  the 
world  of  persons.  Humanity  is  thus  somewhat  more  than 
a  mass  of  men  struggling  for  existence  or  promoting  the 
greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number;  it  is  a  spectacle 
which  never  fails  to  catch  the  attention  of  the  idealist, 
whether  Plato  in  politics  or  Shakespeare  in  poetry.  Indeed, 
we  can  forgive  the  absurdities  which  the  ''Republic"  in- 
troduces, when  we  observe  how  these  human  animals  lend 
themselves  to  a  great  ideal;  just  as  we  can  overlook  the 


376  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

careless  histrionism  of  the  poet  who  is  bent  not  so  much 
upon  the  utility  of  man  as  his  dramatic  possibilities. 

In  his  human  capacity,  man  has  somewhat  more  to  Jo 
than  labor;  he  must  reveal  the  entirety  of  the  world.  This 
consideration  becomes  more  apparent  when  humanity  is  sur- 
veyed upon  the  side  of  its  historical  development.  As  we 
have  seen,  man's  ascent  from  nature  is  not  an  abrupt  de- 
parture, which  leaves  no  trace  of  the  natural  behind  it; 
rather  is  it  a  gradual  movement  masked  by  definite  historical 
stages,  the  first  of  which  appears  in  naturism.  This  program 
could  not  be  carried  out  did  we  not  assume  a  social  basis 
for  mankind,  upon  which  progress  is  made  according  to  the 
principles  of  historical  development.  Man  alone  has  his- 
tory. The  achievement  of  history  is  due  to  man's  constant 
participation  in  his  humanity.  Upon  the  basis  of  individual- 
ism this  progress  could  not  be  understood,  could  not 
be  carried  on  at  all;  because  the  several  stages 
through  which  man  is  to  pass  must  be  worked 
out  in  generations  and  among  nations.  Progress  is  only 
through  society,  which  furnishes  the  causa  efficiens  of  human 
movement.  Civilization  perfects  itself  by  passing  through 
characteristic  stages;  culture  comes  to  consciousness  by  de- 
grees. These  approximations  toward  humanity,  which 
make  up  the  one  history  of  mankind,  are  conceivable  only 
upon  a  non-individualistic  basis.  They  constitute  an  altruism 
in  no  wise  comparable  to  the  materialistic  grouping  of  men 
in  the  mass  of  alters  for  purposes  of  social  work. 

When  we  ignore  the  world  of  humanity,  we  find  it 
hopeless  to  adjust  the  individual  to  society,  where  the  ego 
is  asked  to  be  altruistic  toward  the  alter  while  the  alter  thus 
becomes  egoistic  toward  the  ego.  The  alter-ego  has  some 
more  essential  part  to  play  than  that  accorded  him  under 
the  auspices  of  altruism.  He  confronts  the  ego  as  a  non- 
ego  and  supplies  him  with  evidence  of  the  externally  human 
order,  as  also  with  an  estimate  of  its  worth.  For  this 
reason,  ethics  gains  by  regarding  humanity  in  a  dramatic 
fashion  wherein  the  individual's  problem  of  life  is  like  that 
of  the  protagonist.  The  psychology  of  the  drama  reveals 
the  lyrical  subject  seeking  entrance  into  the  epic  situation, 
or   the   individual   with   his   temperamental   limitations   cn- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  377 

deavoring  to  adjust  himself  to  the  world  of  persons.  Comedy 
and  tragedy  follow  upon  his  efforts  to  attain  human  stand- 
ing as  he  acts  and  suffers.  Much  the  same  is  the  individual's 
relation  to  the  world  of  alter — egos  who  are  like  him  except 
that  they  are  objective  to  his  personal  being.  In  the  midst 
of  it  all,  the  individual  in  his  humanity  towers  above  the 
mass,  and  while  the  epic  and  social  side  of  humanity  is  as 
important  as  the  lyrical  and  egoistic,  the  dramatic  person  who 
reconciles  both  solidarity  and  the  solitaire  is  the  true  sub- 
ject of  moral  dignity.  Meanwhile,  we  cannot  be  drawn 
from  our  selfhood  by  any  pretended  altruism,  or  a  view 
which  in  the  timidity  of  its  expression  substitutes  for  the 
"I"  a  **We."  The  "We",  however,  has  neither  ontological 
force  or  ethical  dignity,  for  it  ever  involves  a  shifting  of  the 
metaphysical  and  moral  responsibility. 


5 — SOLIDARITY   AND   PESSIMISM 

The  despair  of  altruism  is  the  factor  of  self-sacrifice 
which  enters  in  to  cause  a  loss  of  value  on  the  part  of  the 
ego.  Minor  morality  accepts  this  fact  as  a  necessary  evil, 
and  tries  to  console  itself  with  the  thought  that  the  ego  in 
his  native  selfishness  is  better  off  for  the  sacrifice  that  he 
makes.  Or  it  attempts  a  reconcilation  of  the  two  tendencies 
and  tries  to  find  such  a  course  of  conduct  as  satisfies  the  con- 
ditions of  both  phases  of  man's  life.  Yet  where  we  depart 
from  the  empirical  order  of  minor  morality,  and  find  the 
value  and  dignity  of  life  to  consist  in  something  contempla- 
tive, altruism  enters  into  the  life  of  the  ego  without  involv- 
ing any  loss  of  interest.  Whatever  be  the  particular  method 
of  life  between  ego  and  alter,  it  must  appear  that  humanity 
lies  deeper  than  this  or  that  person  and  the  dignity  of  human- 
ity is  of  more  value  than  the  interest  of  the  individual. 
Hence  any  theory  of  altruism  must  postulate  an  order  of 
spiritual  life  containing  the  ego  and  alter  and  it  is  for  the 
sake  of  the  whole  that  the  act  of  unselfishness  is  performed. 
The  individual  must  seek  his  benefit  by  means  of  his  parti- 
cipation in  the  world  order. 

Humanism  is  advanced  by  individualism  as  well  as  by 
socialism;  at  the  same  time,   the  ego  loses  nothing  by  his 


378  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

contact  with  the  order  of  humanity.     Where   this  watch- 
word   is   sounded    is   in    connection    with    some    utilitarian 
scheme,  which  aims  to  advance  a  quantitative,  objective  and 
massive   humanity.     There    is,   however,    another   humanity 
w^hich  exalts  the  spiritual   unity  of  mankind   and   thus  as- 
pires in  a  qualitative  and  subjective  fashion  to  cultivate  the 
individual.     Humanity   is  calculated   to   make    for   the   ad- 
vancement of  the  individual  who  is  not  called  upon  to  sacri- 
fice himself  for  the  sake  of  others  whose  existence  has  no 
more  raison  d'etre  than  his  own.     Just  as  the  cause  of  hu- 
manity is  furthered  by  the  progress  of  the  individual,  so  the 
latter  gains  in  personalism  by  virtue  of  the  idea  of  the  species. 
Humanity  is  attained   in  a  full  individualism  which  is  so 
free  from  narrowness  as  to  forbid  no  parallel  development 
on  the  part  of  the  alter.     The  history  of  culture  furnishes 
many  an  example  of  a  happy  grouping  of  individuals  for  the 
attainment    of    a   seemingly    personal    end.       Witness     the 
Renaissance  in  Florence  with  its  plurality  of  genius  as  also 
the  coterie  gathered  at  the  skirts  of  Fontainebleau  forest  in 
our  nineteenth   century   Renaissance.     No   better   argument 
than  the  aesthetical  one  is  needed  to  show  how  the  realiza- 
tion  of   individual   humanity   is  not   preventive   of   a  social 
program   to   the   same   end.     Genuine   culture    involves   no 
competition,   because   it  aims  at  a  spiritual  order  which   is 
one  and  all  for  mankind,  just  as  religious  faith  in  mankind 
aspires   to   commune   with   the   Supreme   God.     Our   petty 
egoistic-altruistic  conflict  is  all   due   to  a  misinterpretation 
of  life  as  though  it  consisted   in  an  objective   and   limited 
happiness  whose   conditions  were  so  confined   as  to  arouse 
selffishness  and  prescribe  self-sacrifice.     The  dignity  of  hu- 
manity demands  something  more  profound  than  minor  egoism 
and  altruism;  it  upholds  the  principle  of  one  eternal  human- 
ity in  which  all  individuals  participate. 

The  argument  in  favor  of  altruism  is  not  of  a  final 
and  categorical  nature,  but  is  temporary  and  pessimistic. 
For  the  time  being,  under  the  present  and  painful  conditions 
of  the  social  order,  sympathy  must  be  forthcoming  from  the 
ego.  Long  ago  we  passed  beyond  the  staid  British  doctrine 
of  "Benevolence"  and  may  now  be  said  to  survey  society  in 
a  pessimistic  manner  according  to  the  ideals  of  Russian  com- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  379 

passion.  The  older  **altruistis"  have  been  superseded  by 
the  "sympathists"  and  Russian  literature  makes  its  appeal 
to  tenderness  in  Dostoieffsky,  TurgeniefF,  Tolstoi,  and 
Gorky.  Social  Christianity  and  the  Buddhism  of  Schopen- 
hauer and  Wagner  keep  us  aware  of  the  possibilities  and 
actualities  of  human  suffering.  Yet  these  tendencies  are  not 
anti-individualistic  in  their  character,  for  as  a  matter  of  fact 
they  contend  against  the  destruction  of  the  individual.  Our 
modern  Marxian  socialism,  far  from  being  an  altruistic 
movement,  is  only  organized  egoism,  and  around  both  the 
solitarity  and  solidarity  of  mankind  we  may  draw  the  circle 
of  major  selfhood.  Supreme  individualists  may  be  supreme 
sympathists,  as  is  the  case  with  Buddha  and  Christ,  and  the 
most  selfish  man  may  be  one  who  is  wanting  in  personality. 
From  our  standpoint,  according  to  which  humanity  strives 
toward  the  spiritual  and  struggles  against  the  natural,  the 
individual  is  the  last  word  in  the  universe,  so  that  man's 
true  moral  dignity  cannot  be  maintained  unless  his  indivi- 
duality be  granted  him. 


VI 

THE    TRIUMPH    OF    HUMANITY    IN    MAJOR 

MORALITY 

Finally,  it  remains  to  be  asked  whether  humanity  is 
destined  to  detach  itself  from  nature  and  assert  itself  as  a 
spiritual  form  of  existence.  Will  man  remain  a  creature 
or  become  a  character?  Is  his  life  to  obey  sense,  or  will  it 
respond  to  reason?  Our  moderns  have  been  so  anxious 
to  include  humanity  in  some  system  of  their  own  that  they 
have  not  stopped  to  inquire  which  way  man  himself  was 
destined  to  go.  If  his  life  be  a  life  of  reason,  sense  cannot 
detain  him  no  matter  how  consistent  the  hedonic  argument 
may  seem;  and  if  he  is  fated  to  linger  in  nature  the  call  of 
conscience  and  duty  can  be  only  an  irritation.  In  dealing 
with  man  in  his  inner  totality,  the  two  schools  have  con- 
cluded, the  one  by  counseling  moderation  and  immediacy, 
the  other  renunciation  and  remoteness  of  interest,  while 
Schopenhauer  has  applied  these  two  ideals  aesthetically  and 
ethically  to  bring  about  the  triumph  of  reason  over  will. 
This  takes  place  in  man  when  he  learns  to  deny  within  him 
the  world  as  will-to-live.  The  only  question  is,  does  such 
a  method  or  such  a  combination  of  methods  bring  about  a 
genuine  victory?  Does  man  win  the  battle  or  simply  quit 
the  field?  It  would  seem  as  though  moderation  merely 
proposed  a  truce  while  renunciation  involved  retreat  from 
the  scene  of  conflict. 

Our  conception  of  humanity  has  represented  man  in  an 
ambiguous  position  and  has  further  conceived  of  him  as  a 
striving  creature  who  is  not  at  home  in  nature  nor  content 
with  his  animality.  For  this  all-inclusive  reason  we  must 
conclude  by  postulating  the  triumph  of  spirit  over  sense  as 
the  tendency  without  which  our  human  activities  cannot  be 
comprehended.  If  man  were  not  in  a  spiritual  atmosphere 
at  all,  but  were  wholly  enclosed  within  the  domain  of  im- 

380 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  381 

mediacy,  it  were  not  so  easy  to  conclude  in  favor  of  victor- 
ious humanity ;  but  the  half-natural,  half-spiritual  condition 
of  man,  coupled  with  the  activity  of  intellection  that  makes 
him  react  upon  the  world  of  experience,  renders  the  idea  of 
spiritual  supremacy  plausible.  Only  in  a  humanistic  system 
seeking  the  value  and  dignity  of  life  is  such  a  positon  tenable ; 
the  eudaemonistic  view  of  man  confines  him  to  nature  while 
the  rigoristic  ideal  artificially  withdraws  him  from  the 
world  of  sense,  so  that  in  neither  case  does  man  have  an 
opportunity  to  contrast  the  two  orders  of  life  and  evaluate 
their  respective  interests.  Humanism  admits  the  presence 
of  nature  and  eudaemonism  in  man  while  it  does  not  deny 
the  possibility  of  spiritual  life  also,  hence  it  alone  is  capable 
of  carrying  on  the  conflict  between  a  lower  and  a  higher 
order  of  life  in  man's  soul.  Having  observed  how  extra- 
sensitive  is  man  so  that  pleasure  and  desire,  immediacy  and 
activity,  do  not  content  him,  and  having  noted  the  extra- 
spontaneity  that  arises  in  the  constraints  of  conscience  as 
well  as  the  urgings  of  duty,  we  are  ready  to  assert  that  man 
is  destined  to  triumph  over  both  nature  and  himself.  In 
doing  this,  man  must  perceive  value  in  the  world  and  pro- 
mote dignity  in  his  life. 


I — HUMAN   TRIUMPH    IN    CONSCIOUSNESS — ^THE   VALUE   OF 

LIFE 

Only  in  man  do  we  find  an  arrangement  of  values,  and 
if,  as  Nietzsche  said,  "Man  is  the  valuing  animal  as  such", 
we  may  learn  that  his  contact  with  nature,  where  the  vast 
content  of  reality  is  revealed  to  him,  impresses  him  with^'the 
value  of  it  all  as  well  as  the  sense  of  his  striving.  We  can- 
not assume  an  extra-human  standpoint  and  lay  down  a 
major  premise  to  the  efiFect  that  whatever  fulfills  certain 
unknown  ideal  conditions  has  value,  for  we  are  more  or  less 
closely  attached  to  the  world  itself  and  our  reality  is  given 
to  us  through  the  receptive  will  rather  than  by  some  de- 
monstration of  the  intellect.  But  from  what  man  has  been 
and  has  done  in  his  history,  we  feel  safe  in  assuming  that 
he  has  been  realizing  the  worth  of  existence  whose  phases 
of  value  arc  as  apparent  as  its  forms  of  being.     If  man  finds 


382  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

no  value  In  his  world-life,  how  can  we  explain  the  elabora- 
tion of  inner  culture  and  outer  civilization?  If  he  was 
destined  to  remain  a  prey  of  passion  rather  than  a  subject 
of  sentiment,  how  can  we  explain  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  his  science  and  art,  his  ethics  and  religion?  The 
progress  of  these  free  forms  of  spiritual  life  attest  to  the 
fact  that  existence  has  not  been  in  vain.  Man  has  been 
unable  to  live  without  ideals,  just  as  he  has  found  it  impossi- 
ble to  exist  without  ideal  excitement.  His  activities  have 
aimed  at  a  remote,  an  ultimate  interest,  and  while  he  has 
often  deluded  himself  into  accepting  fictitious  values,  the 
general  sense  of  worth  has  ever  prevailed. 

The  standard  assumed  cannot  be  the  hedonic  one  alone, 
for  both  eudaemonism  and  the  theory  of  value  have  some- 
thing to  say  concerning  the  fate  of  man  on  earth.  Man's 
destiny  is  determined,  not  simply  by  what  he  does,  but  by 
what  he  suffers;  hence  we  inquire  concerning  the  outcome  of 
life  by  asking  whether  man  can  endure  under  the  conditions 
life  imposes  upon  him.  In  this  way  happiness  becomes,  not 
merely  a  general  satisfaction,  but  a  test  of  reality  and  value, 
and  when  man  becomes  happy,  he  demonstrates  the  con- 
quering humanity  within  him.  Serious  souls  whose  suffering 
makes  them  wise  do  not  complain  merely  of  the  personal 
pain  that  life  inflicts,  but  are  wounded  by  the  thought  that 
man  was  never  destined  to  be  happy,  so  that  humanity  is 
a  failure.  Such  pessimism,  while  having  its  root  in  the  in- 
dividual, assumes  a  cosmic  form  when  humanistic  ethics 
begins  to  chide  nature  for  her  blindness  and  imperfection.  To 
him  who  believes  in  humanity,  however,  escape  is  not  im- 
possible, for  pessimism  is  a  philosophic  argument  standing 
in  need  of  defense  against  a  victorious  humanity. 

Humanity  is  neither  wholly  speculative  nor  purely 
practical;  its  nature  appears  first  in  will  then  in  intellect. 
As  a  result,  there  is  more  than  one  way  of  approach  to  the 
garden  of  human  life.  When,  therefore,  we  observe  how 
optimism  has  some  claim  upon  man's  attention,  we  may 
adjust  the  two  views  by  allowing  the  mind  to  accept  the 
critical  suggestions  of  pessimism,  whose  interest  in  the  ideal 
has  urged  it  to  castigate  experience,  while  the  will  in  its 
practical  and  unreflective  fashion  can  best  realize  its  possi- 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  383 

bilities  under  the  auspices  of  optimism.  In  other  words, 
life  may  look  melancholy,  but  we  human  beings  can  act  in 
optimistic  opposition  to  the  given  circumstances.  Specula- 
tive pessimism,  as  it  weighs  ideal  and  real  only  to  conclude 
against  the  world  of  nature,  can  combine  with  the  practical 
optimism  of  action.  This  division  of  life's  labor  further 
suggests  that  one  may  be  pessimistic  toward  the  finished  past 
and  optimistic  toward  the  plastic  future  as  it  confronts  the 
will.  Some  such  adjustment  becomes  necessary  when  wc 
consider  how  both  views  of  life  have  an  air  of  tenability, 
while  the  optimist  makes  pessimistic  admissions  as  to  fact 
where  the  pessimist  constantly  assumes  optimistic  ideals. 
Such  a  paradoxical  condition  of  things  is  wholly  explicable 
in  the  light  of  our  humanity,  made  up  as  this  is  of  a  mixture 
of  nature  and  spirit. 

2 — THE  TRIUMPH   OVER  IMMEDIACY 


The  commingling  of  optimism  and  pessimism  in  man's 
conquest  of  humanity  appears  in  the  forms  of  hedonism.  In 
the  world  of  sense  man  has  carried  on  his  conflict  with  pleas- 
ure and  achieved  his  own  victory,  whence  v/e  learn  how  the 
consciousness  of  humanity  triumphs  over  its  immediate  sti- 
muli. The  discovery  of  that  paradox  whereby  pleasure 
does  not  wholly  please  man,  and  the  perception  of  the  fruit- 
lessness  which  ever  accompanies  the  grasping  after  fluid 
feelings,  lead  man  to  seek  his  human  satisfaction  elsewhere. 
Shall  the  paradox  of  pleasure  be  regarded  as  defeat  or  vic- 
tory for  humanity?  As  argument  for  pessimism  or  opti- 
mism? Whichever  way  the  emphasis  may  be  moved.  It 
remains  as  a  fact  that  man's  triumph  over  nature  appears 
in  his  very  dissatisfaction  over  what  nature  affords ;  hedonism 
shows  conclusively  that  it  was  not  meant  to  explain  striving 
humanity  whose  efforts  are  directed  toward  some  other  than 
a  sensuous  goal.  The  lower  discontent  is  the  higher  satis- 
faction, the  failure  of  sense  the  success  of  spirit;  hence  the 
paiadox  of  pleasure  is  the  paradox  of  humanity.  If  man 
was  not  destined  to  remain  in  nature,  if  he  is  not  supposed 
to  be  content  with  his  animality,  hedonic  dissatisfaction  can 
only  argue  in  favor  of  some  higher  and  more  truly  human 


384  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

view.  Since  history  is  progressive  and  not  regressive,  it  is 
impossible  to  return  to  nature  as  Rousseau  advised,  and 
human  consciousness  having  been  pagan  in  the  past  cannot 
now  return  to  the  condition  of  naivete  recommended  by 
Schiller.  The  man  of  the  future  must  be  of  the  future 
and  not  of  the  past. 

The  hedonic  rejection  of  pleasure,  involuntary  as  it 
was,  led  to  the  recognition  of  desire  as  the  more  original 
source  of  human  activity.  By  means  of  desire  man  is  led 
away  from  actual  experience  as  given  in  the  present  to  the 
ideal  as  outlined  in  the  future.  Where  mere  feeling  affords 
a  negative  means  of  showing  how  man  fails  to  find  realiza- 
tion in  the  naturistic  world  of  sense,  desire  testifies  in  a 
positive  fashion  by  leading  man  from  the  externally  given 
to  the  inwardly  conceived,  and  where  pleasure  is  a  posteriori, 
desire  is  a  priori.  It  was  for  such  a  reason  that  we  sought 
the  essence  of  value  in  active  desire  rather  than  in  passive 
pleasure,  for  in  a  form  of  consciousness  arising  within  and 
leading  its  subject  beyond  the  borders  of  experience  is  found 
the  essence  of  humanity.  Man  is  the  creature  of  desire  and 
the  triumph  of  humanity  over  nature  appears  again  in  the 
creative  form  which  consciousness  assumes  when  man  enter- 
tains ideal  forms  of  mind  in  connection  with  desire.  Man 
is  confronted  by  another  than  the  question,  "What  ought 
I  to  do?"  He  asks  also,  "What  may  I  desire?"  If,  there- 
fore, within  the  world  of  time  and  space  his  desires  urge  him 
beyond  and  above  these  limitations,  we  assume  that,  in  so 
far,  he  has  demonstrated  the  victorious  quality  of  his  human- 
ity. The  endlessness  of  desire  reveals  humanity  transcend- 
ing nature. 

In  the  ideas  of  utility  and  eudaemonia  appear  the  coun- 
terparts of  pleasure  and  desire,  and  where  the  original  prin- 
ciples of  hedonism  were  positive,  the  later  ones  are  negative 
and  reunuciatory.  Since  man's  desire  to  attain  to  something 
beyond  nature  seems  fruitless,  he  will  console  himself  with 
the  culture  of  immediacy  which  in  Bacon's  system  consisted 
in  ruling  the  powers  of  nature  by  the  rtiight  of  knowledge. 
With  this  early  modern  thinker  who  was  at  heart  an  em- 
piricist, such  a  form  of  culture  was  deemed  sufficient.  With 
Voltaire  and  Goethe,  who  had  higher  ideals  of  knowledge, 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  385 

the  cultivation  of  the  garden  was  a  resort  to  be  adopted 
when  the  impossibility  of  pure  cognition  had  been  demon- 
strated. For  this  reason,  eudaemonism  becomes  a  philoso- 
phy of  renunciation ;  as  if  to  say,  "We  would  know,  but 
since  we  cannot,  we  will  work;  we  have  sought  happiness 
in  the  understanding  but  finding  it  not,  we  seek  peace 
through  the  will."  In  the  conflict  between  nature  and  spirit, 
eudaemonism  must  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  truce;  it  does 
not  lead  man  to  pleasure,  but  relieves  him  of  pain:  it  con- 
ceives of  an  ideal  life,  but  it  is  not  an  ideal  for  man.  The 
ideals  of  immediacy  and  activity  are  not  sufficient  to  establish 
the  worth  of  life. 

To  posit  immediacy  as  the  true  realm  of  human  activity 
is  to  indulge  in  bad  metaphysics,  for,  even  in  his  purely 
sensuous  capacity,  man  has  not  wholly  failed  to  see  some- 
what of  the  world's  real  significance.  This  view  may  not 
indeed  be  sun-clear,  but  man  was  meant  to  survey  the  world 
rather  opaquely  through  the  atmosphere  of  immediacy,  and 
it  is  by  means  of  this  ability  to  penetrate  the  phenomenal 
that  he  has  secured  his  principles  of  beauty  and  truth. 
Science,  which  has  surrendered  to  immediacy,  does  not  fail 
to  apprehend  nature  in  its  totality,  while  art  postulates  a 
world-order  wherein  the  confused  mass  of  sense  lends  itself 
to  a  harmonious  plan.  Eudaemonism  has  been  viewing  the 
world  as  a  system  supposed  to  produce  pleasure,  but  the 
defeat  of  such  a  hedonology  does  not  force  philosophy  to  quit 
the  field  of  human  values.  Life  is  more  for  instruction  than 
entertainment,  and  the  genuine  triumph  of  humanity  con- 
sists in  the  victory  of  reason  over  the  sense-world  of  im- 
mediacy. 

Human  values  are  the  values  of  culture,  and  these  make 
necessary  some  recognition  of  the  inwardness  of  spirit  as  well 
as  the  remoteness  of  the  object  which  it  contemplates.  The 
ideal  of  immediacy,  whether  in  the  ancient  Garden  of  Epi- 
curus or  the  modern  jardin  of  Voltaire,  thwarts  humanity 
in  its  attempt  at  realization  and  leads  man  to  inquire,  as 
poor  Stendhal  used  to  put  it,  "Is  this  all?**  Our  human 
world  was  not  given  to  us  by  nature  in  the  form  of  im- 
mediacy, but  has  been  willed  by  humanity  in  its  "energy  of 
contemplation."     Consciousness  is  not  a  mere  accompaniment 


386  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

of  our  human  life,  but  the  essence  of  it;  for  It  makes  man 
what  he  is,  by  giving  him,  as  it  were,  mind-stuff  out  of 
which  his  activities  create  a  world  of  cognition.  Man  can- 
not receive  immediacy  as  such,  for  he  can  hold  fast  to  things 
only  as  he  proves,  or  intuits,  them.  Still  less  can  man  be 
made  happy  by  any  gifts  that  nature  may  bestow,  and  with 
such  satisfaction,  or  rather  stupefaction,  as  may  come  from 
activity  in  the  immediate  order  of  things,  we  fail  to  find  the 
things  that  are  needful:  personality,  freedom  both  physical 
and  political,  the  will-to-acquiesce.  These  are  creations  of 
the  human  spirit,  not  mere  crystallizations  from  without. 

Activism  is  an  anodyne.  Here  we  have  the  other  weak- 
ness of  eudaemonism,  which  with  its  immedlateness  and  ener- 
gism,  fails  to  settle  with  the  will  as  will,  confining  its  atten- 
tion to  the  spinal  chord.  As  a  result,  eudaemonism  is  first 
purely  agerent  and  then  merely  egerent,  and  In  neither  case 
does  it  find  its  centre  In  volition.  We  cannot  wholly  re- 
ceive ;  we  cannot  simply  act ;  we  must  create.  Here  activism 
is  found  wanting,  for  it  provides  for  only  an  endless  series 
of  efforts  directed  toward  no  real  goal,  and  does  not  dis- 
cover the  free  creativeness  In  the  human  will.  Work  is  not 
a  sincere  form  of  striving,  but  an  occupation  by  means  of 
which  empty  time  is  filled  and  ennui  postponed.  Activity 
has  its  place  in  a  system  of  human  striving,  and  this  place 
is  a  real  one.  Eudaemonism,  however,  merely  uses  activity 
as  an  anaesthetic,  where  a  straightforward  view  of  human 
work  would  lead  to  some  objective  goal.  The  result  Is  such 
as  to  make  men  appear  as  amateur  humans,  rather  than  as 
real  persons,  and  their  life  is  more  practice  than  perform- 
ance. The  values  with  which  life  Is  potential  are  to  be 
secured  by  something  more  creative  than  Aristotelian  and 
Voltairian  activism,  and  the  deed  must  be  a  factum  noume- 
non  of  spiritual  selfhood. 

3 — HUMAN  TRIUMPH  IN  CONDUCT — THE  DIGNITY  OF  MAN 

Our  human  ability  to  receive  the  significance  of  nature, 
in  fitting  forms  of  consciousness  is  but  half  of  the  problem, 
whose  counterpart  consists  in  reacting  upon  nature,  with 
appropriate   methods   of   conduct.     Man    must   contemplate 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  387 

the  world  with  worthy  feelings,  he  must  carry  on  the  con- 
quest of  life  with  dignified  motives.  At  this  point  our  truly 
human  conception  of  man  seems  to  aid  us  in  avoiding  the 
paradoxes  involved  in  the  two  minor  forms  of  ethics,  accord- 
mg  to  which  man  Is  supposed  to  live  either  without  ideals  or 
to  strive  without  hope  of  their  realization.  The  humanistic 
system  of  life  does  not  allow  nature  so  to  submerge  man  that 
he  cannot  rise  above  the  conditions  of  animality,  nor  does  it 
admit  that  our  human  ideals  are  so  derived  from  an  alien 
realm  of  reason  that  their  attainment  Is  forever  beyond  flesh 
and  blood.  Our  sensations  and  our  ideas,  our  immediate  feel- 
ings and  our  ultimate  values,  are  all  our  own  and  it  is  just 
to  suppose  that  the  intellect  which  aligns  the  ideal  is  not 
blind  to  the  possibilities  of  the  will  that  is  to  achieve  it ;  for 
so  unified  are  the  functions  of  the  mind  that  ideas  take 
cognizance  of  volitions  and  in  both  active  and  passive  forms 
does  the  soul  express  one  and  the  same  nature. 

Just  as  our  belief  in  the  value  of  life  was  clouded  by  a 
cudaemonistic  form  of  pessimism,  so  our  claims  for  human 
dignity  are  confronted  by  a  moralistic  phase  of  despair. 
Where  man  is  supposed  to  attain  to  a  rational  good  he  seems," 
according  to  Kant,  to  be  a  prey  to  the  ''radically  bad"  and 
a  critical  system,  which  calls  upon  the  understanding  to  give 
laws  to  nature  as  the  will  makes  maxims  for  humanity,  ends 
in  religious  pathos.  Nevertheless,  Kant's  explanation  of  the 
bad  provides  a  way  of  escape,  although  he  did  not  avail 
himself  of  it.  Badness  is  not  found  in  reason  alone,  for 
such  a  condition  of  perversity  would  make  man's  character 
demoniacal ;  nor  is  it  confined  to  mere  sense  whose  debasing 
influence  would  be  bestial.  Man,  however,  is  human  in 
his  sins  and  his  badness  appears  in  the  tendency  to  put  sense 
above  reason  Instead  of  subordinating  the  lower  to  the 
higher.  Now,  our  own  conception  of  humanity,  that  strange 
mixture  of  sense  and  spirit,  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  give 
a  similar  setting  to  the  life  of  man  in  its  goodness  and  bad- 
ness, for  we  have  observed  how  ambiguous  is  the  position 
occupied  by  man  In  the  universe.  At  the  same  time,  the 
dynamic  principle  of  striving  leads  us  to  postulate  a  condi- 
tion of  things  in  which  sense  shall  be  overcome  by  spirit, 
the  triumph  of  humanity  in  conduct.     Man's  moral  supre- 


388  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

macy  thus  seems  to  consist,  not  in  the  elimination  of  sense 
according  to  the  maxim  of  renunciation,  but  m  a  subordina- 
tion of  the  low  to  a  low  place  and  an  exaltation  of  the  high 
to  a  lofty  position.     The  "good  man"  is  still  human  and 
his  condition  is  one  of  life  rather  than  death.     Both  eudae- 
monism  and  rigorism  give  sense  undue  prominence,  the  one 
positively,  the  other  negatively.     Humanism  refuses  to  con- 
sider  the  sensuous  as  in  any  way  convincing  and  puts  the 
purpose  of  life  upon  a  plane  where  sense  appears  in  a  purely 
sym^ic  way.     The  view  of  life  that  surveys  man  as  such 
reveals  a  condition  of  being  where  immediacy  yields  to  ulti- 
macy,  passion  to  sentiment,  the  creature  to  the  character. 

The  active  realization  of  humanity  is  consistent  with  a 
condition   of   things   in  which  some   measure  of   sense   std 

survives,  and  man  can  attain  t^^""^f"l^^^%'*^^™  °^ 
his  actual   existence.     Eudaemonism    fails   to   do   justice   to 
the  ideal  aspect  of  humanity  and  had  man   taken  counsel 
of  its  exponents  the  spiritual  achievements  of  the  race  could 
never  have  been  brought  about.     In  its  own  way,  rigorism 
is  also  alien  to  the  needs  of  humanity    for  its  adherents  seem 
more  interested  in  negating  sense  than  in  affirming  spirit 
it  is  a  sad  fact  that  the  traditional  way  ^f. approaching  spirit- 
ual life  is  through  denial  alone.     The  triumph  of  humanity 
docs  not  consist  in  cither  moderation  or  renunciation ;  it  is 
found  in  a  positive  affirmation  of  the  spiritual  as  the  superior 
part  of  man.     What  is  expected  of  man  is  not  merely  temper- 
ance in  handling  things  of  sense,  or  asceticism  in  rejecting 
them    but  dignity,  whose  nature  consists  in  developing  the 
InnT;  totality'^f'a  form  of  life  not  destined  to  remain  m 
the  mere  objective  individualism  of  nature. 

If  we  recall  how  characteristic  ethics  sought  to  view  its 
ideals,  first  as  sharply  outlined  against  the  air,  and  then  sut- 
fused  with  the  atmosphere  of  humanity,  we  may  obsei^e  in 
what  way  humanity  triumphs  over  its  duties  as  well  as  »ts  de- 
sires Man  conducts  himeslf  with  dignity  even  though  he  does 
not  shrink  from  the  cranes  of  conscience  or  the  ravens  ot  re- 
nunciation.    Nevertheless    conscience,  as  a  human  function 
guarding  the  interests  of  human  beings,  constitutes  a  force 
ful  argument  in  favor  of  man's  moral  supremacy  over  nature 
To  the  lower  order  of  sensation  he  is  bound  by  the  ties  of 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  389 

pleasure  and  pain,  but  is  none  the  less  amenable  to  the 
higher  order  of  humanity  with  its  interests  of  approval  and 
disapproval.  Just  as  the  deeper  meaning  of  conscience  is 
found  in  humanity,  so  its  value  seems  to  consist  in  evincing 
the  inherent  dignity  of  man  whose  rights  are  guarded  by 
the  stern  m.  f  of  compunction.  Approval  and  disap- 
proval are  superior  to  simple  pleasure  and  pain,  just  as  hu- 
manity is  superior  to  nature  and  in  this  elevation  of  man 
through  his  morality,  the  dignity  of  human  life  appears  in 
clear  outline. 

The  treatment  of  human  rectitude  has  no  other  signifi- 
cance, and  while  its  autonomous  form  is  as  hopeless  as  the 
infallibility  of  conscience,  its  human  significance  is  no  less  con- 
vincing. Rectitude  is  an  ideal  having  at  heart  the  interest 
of  humanity,  that  is,  humanity  comme  il  faut.  Instead  of 
regarding  humanity  as  a  mere  concept  including  all  indivi- 
duals, we  should  further  consider  it  as  an  ideal  of  perfect 
spiritual  life  on  earth;  it  is  not  only  logical  in  its  form  but 
ethical  in  its  content.  This  notion  of  hum^^nity  is  advanced 
consistently  by  our  conception  of  rectitude  as  a  disinterested 
regard  for  virtue.  When  man  is  raised  to  the  point  of 
view  where  he  can  look  upon  humanity  as  possessing  value, 
he  has  begiin  u  ,  preciate  the  dignity  of  human  life,  and 
while  the  judgment  of  right  may  be  concerned  with  many 
a  detail  of  moral  conduct,  it  cannot  conceal  the  totality  of 
the  ethical,  nor  the  dignity  involved  within  it. 

The  active  side  of  characteristic  ethics  is  no  less  indica- 
tive of  human  triumph  over  immediacy  as  the  instances  of 
freedom  and  duty  clearly  show.  In  these  cases,  as  with  con- 
science and  rectitude,  it  becomes  necessary  to  humanize  our 
ideals  in  order  to  evince  the  proper  dignity  of  man;  for  a 
rationalistic  scheme,  making  man  inferior  to  moral  obligation, 
tends  only  to  degrade  his  being  and  discourage  his  efforts 
toward  affirming  selfhood.  Freedom  has  been  seen  to  con- 
sist in  something  natural  rather  than  in  some  extraordinary 
form  of  activity  and  now  the  genuine  motive  behind  human 
liberty  appears  more  clearly.  The  earlier  treatment  of 
freedom  with  the  Schoolman  was  suffused  with  a  theological 
argument  urged  in  favor  of  human  destiny,  for  it  seemed 
impossible  to  provide  for  a  rational  scheme  of  redemption  for 


390  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

man  unless  he  were  conceived  of  as  free      The  modern  En- 
Hghtenment   culminating   in   Kant   «,ught   to   Put    freedom 
upon  a  moral  basis  and  contended  that  man  must  be  free  i 
in  to  perform  his  duty.     But  the  constructive  v.ew  of 
freedom   whereby  man  creates  in  the  world  of  thought  and 
SLn    ;ow  appears  in  the  interest  of  human  d.gn.ty  and 
the  triumph  of  man  over  nature   is  made  possible  by  the 
nheent   freedom   of   the  human   spirit      The   category   of 
duty  has  the  same  significance  for  the  achievement  of  human 
Sty,  for  it  consists  in  an  abiding  sense  of  responsibility 
Sng  in  connection  with  man's  consciousness  of  the  order 
tha   upholds  and  envelops  him.     With  his  place  in  the  sp.rit- 
u^  world  of  human  life  brought  to  his  realization   man  can 
hardly  escape  from  the  ideal  of  duty;  the  result  is  dignity. 

Finally    the  sharp  decision  that  leads  man  to  renounce 
the  world'knd  to  hate  his  life  therein  asserts  -^ost  forcefully 
the  superiority  of  man  over  nature.     Both  the  battle  lost 
«!.d  the  Tattle  won  are  equally  terrible,  and  renunciation 
defeats  humanity  while  seeking  to  deliver  it      Nevertheless, 
?he  Ideals  of  rigorism  have  about  them  something  convincing 
where  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  man  is  involved      Again, 
Tai^the  standard  of  dignity  and  the  spectable  of  the  ascetic 
becomes  thrilling.     We  see  what  man  can  accomplish,  and  we 
learn  to  believe  in  humanity  in  general  by  noting  what  it 
does  in  particular.     Men  who  crave  sUgmata  and  make  the 
vl  of  silence  were  never  meant  to  be  human  guides,  ye 
Ihey  do  not  fail  to  instruct  us  in  the  fine  art  of  sp.ntua^ 
life-  they  live  apart  from  the  world  of  average  life    and 
while  they  may  not  align  for  man  his  duty,  they  indicate 
for  him  his  dignity.     Just  as  the  artistic  genius  with  his 
capacitT  for  ideal  pleasure  reveals  unto  us  the  mystery  of 
beautv   so  the  religious  prophet  reveals  human  sublimity  in 
Ae  po'ssfbility  of  ideal  pain.     These  military  and  martyr- 
like ideals  are  always  inspiring,  though  not  always  convinc- 

• 

'"^  With  these  various  forms  of  human  character  before  us, 
we  can  hardly  deny  that  man  is  destined  to  triumph  over  his 
Mtuation  in  nature,  as  well  as  his  narrow  egoism  ot  im- 
mXT  feeling.  He  achieves  dignity  in  his  character  as  he 
also   finds  value   through   his  consciousness.     His   art   and 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  391 

science  transform  the  perceptual  display  of  nature  into  an 
order  of  beauty  and  truth,  while  his  ethics  and  religion  react 
upon  immediate  impulses  in  such  a  way  that  they  arc 
changed  into  forms  of  ideal  activity,  whose  goal  is  no  material 
consideration  at  all.  While  a  eudaemonistic  form  of  pessi- 
mism may  forbid  man  to  call  his  life  in  the  world  of  time 
and  space  a  satisfactory  one,  so  that  his  belief  In  life's  values 
may  be  threatened,  there  arises  a  corresponding  form  of 
optimism  which  exalts  man  by  considering  him  capable  of 
restraint  in  his  desire  and  renunciation  of  life  with  its  tangle 
of  pleasure  and  pain.  In  general,  the  possibilities  of  man 
seem  about  equal  to  the  satisfactions  of  nature,  so  that  the 
argument  for  human  dignity  Is  as  cogent  as  the  contention  in 
favor  of  the  worth  of  life.  To  demonstrate  the  dignity  of 
man  it  Is  not  necessary  to  resort  to  objective  history  where 
human  deeds  are  recounted  to  the  merit  or  demerit  of  the 
human  subject;  we  need  only  to  Inquire  whether,  in  the 
light  of  what  humanity  has  been,  man  can  set  his  attention 
upon  an  Ideal  aim  and  pursue  that  which  has  only  remote 
interest.  Is  man  capable  of  Idealism?  Upon  such  a  ques- 
tion seems  to  depend  the  whole  issue  of  human  dignity. 
Does  this  Idealism  involve  the  surrender  of  selfhood? 

4 — THE   TRIUMPH    OVER   RENUNCIATION 

Here  we  seem  to  have  the  climax  of  all  moral  thinking 
expressed  as  it  Is  by  Inquiring,  should  man  realize  himself  in 
his  humanity,  or  should  he  renounce  himself  as  individual? 
Both  naturistic  and  characteristic  ethics  converge,  as  they 
also  conflict,  one  tendency  urging  man  toward  individual 
being,  the  other  toward  social  not-being.  Hence  arise  the 
questions  ,  '*What  ought  I  to  do  with  the  world?  Shall  I 
receive  it,  or  repudiate  it?  Shall  I  regard  It  in  love  or  in 
hate?"  Egoistic  eudaemonism  Invites  us  to  lay  hold  of  life 
while  it  passes  by  us,  the  doctrine  of  renunciation  warns  us 
to  let  It  slip  through  the  fingers,  to  cast  the  pearl  back  into 
the  deep,  the  gold  into  the  mine.  This  is  the  doctrine  of 
renunciation  clearly  recognizable  in  Buddhism  and  Christian- 
ity, discernible  anew  in  Schopenhauer's  negation,  Wagner's 
renunciation,  Tolstoi's  crucifixion,  and  Huysmans'  "Road  to 


392  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

Damascus.**  The  atmosphere  of  this  retroaction  is  that  of 
pessimism  and  self-pity,  and  while  it  witnesses  to  the  glory 
of  our  victorious  humanity,  it  tends  to  deprive  it  of  its  vic- 
tory, for  man  must  conquer  both  nature  and  fate,  and  re- 
nunciation consists  in  a  bitter  surrender  to  the  universe. 

In  striking  contrast  to  this  burning  out  of  sense  by  those 
whose   faces  are  ablaze  with  spirit,   is  the  wild   revolution 
against  life  carried  on  by  our  modern  egoists.     These  assert 
the   individual   and    refuse   to   be   submerged    in    the   social 
scheme  of  solidarity ;  they  counsel  man  to  be  the  master,  not 
the  slave  of  his  ideals;  they  urge  him  to  live  life  and  love 
the  world,  with  all  their  possibilities  of  knowledge,  of  pleas- 
ure, of  power.     In  the  midst  of  the  storm,  one  sees  the  cyni- 
cal countenances  of  Ibsen  and  Strindberg,  while  he  hears  the 
imprecations  of  Nietzsche  and  the  milder  protests  of  Haupt- 
mann  and  Sudermann.     Ever  since  the  days  of  Napoleon, 
French  writers,  from  Stendhal  to  Anatole  France,  have  urged 
the  individual  to  arraign  society  and  the  world,  and  the  ideal 
of  renunciation  has  been  left  for  ancient  Jews  and  modern 
Russians.    It  is  metaphysically  impossible  and  morally  repug- 
nant for  man  to  surrender  himself  to  purely  activistic  ethics, 
whicn  like  a  turbid  stream,  would  carry  him  away  from  his 
egoistic  moorings.  There  was  a  time  when  an  ethical  doctrine 
could  be  proved  simply  by  saying,  "Benevolence",  or  "Duty," 
but  these  watch-words  sound  faint  in  the  ear  of  those  who 
are   themselves  crying,   "Be   thyself,"   "Live   thy   life."     It 
now  comes  to  light  that  renunciation  was  the   foundation 
upon  which  minor  ethics  reared   its  gieat  moralistic  struc- 
tures of  hedonism  and  rigorism,  and  the  affirmation  of  the 
ego  now  tends  to  shake  these  buildings  to  their  foundations. 
Nevertheless,   there   is  an   implicit   truth   and   residuary 
value  in  the  ideal  of  renunciation,  as  even  victorious  human- 
ity must  admit.     Certainly  we  cannot  receive  the  world  in  a 
heedless  and  uncritical  spirit,  without  seeking  some  sort  of 
spiritual  reaction  upon  it;  for  to  remain  passive  is  to  leave 
life  upon  the  level  of  plant  and  animal.     And  if  the  world 
is  not  to  be  renounced,  it  must  be  handled  in  a  masterful 
fashion  by  the  man  of  knowledge,  of  art,  of  worship,  and 
of  conduct.     The  ego  cannot  consist  of  the  simple  solitaire, 
who  is  mentally  blind  to  the  totality  of  the  world  about  him, 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  393 

so  that  neither  the  petty  egoism  of  the  hedonist  nor  the  genial 
individuality  of  the  eudaemonistic  worker  in  the  garden  will 
suffice  for  life.  Hence,  when  we  refuse  to  suffer  for  the 
sake  of  duty  and  repudiate  the  altruistic  destruction  of  the 
individual,  we  cannot  deny  that  the  totality  of  our  life  de- 
mands the  recognition  of  both  selfhood  and  worldhood  in 
humanity.  We  know  that  man  can  choose  pleasure  or  pain, 
being  or  not-being,  for  the  natural  order  which  produced 
him  uses  death  as  well  as  life  to  execute  its  sovereign  ends, 
so  that  man  is  furnished,  not  only  with  an  impulse  to  live, 
but  an  instinct  to  die.  The  whole  history  of  man  shows  a 
darkened  sky  above  and  a  black  earth  beneath,  while  art  and 
religion  enter  in  to  calm  and  console  him.  As  a  result,  the 
possibilities  of  renunciation  can  not  be  questioned,  and  all 
that  is  needed  is  a  philosophy  capable  of  guiding  this  subtle 
instinct  of  repudiation. 

What  ought  man  to  do  with  his  world,  himself,  his  life 
in  the  world?  Should  man  renounce  his  claims  to  self- 
hood, or  realize  them?  In  opposition  to  blind  renunciation, 
we  may  assert  that  man  has  the  right  to  selfhood,  if  to 
nothing  else;  that  is,  he  may  live  in  self,  if  not  for  self. 
Toward  the  world,  his  attitude  need  not  be  one  of  renuncia- 
tion, but  a  "mental  acquiescence,"  as  Spinoza  (Ethics,  Pt. 
V.  Props.  XXVII,  XXXVIII )  called  it.  Man  as  individual  may 
accept  the  universe  in  its  totality,  and  in  so  doing  he  will 
find  that  his  dignity  is  increased  and  not  diminished  by  an 
act  of  acquiescence  which  is  mental,  and  whose  interior 
character  consists  in  recognizing  the  world  rather  than  in 
surrendering  to  it  in  an  unintelligent  fashion.  It  is  toward 
this  higher  level,  where  acquiescence  in  the  whole  and  affirm- 
ation in  the  individual  meet,  that  the  ethics  of  the  present 
should  strive.  This  ideal  is  in  accordance  with  the  funda- 
mental notion  of  man,  laid  down  in  Part  One,  where  we 
saw  humanity  striving  with  nature  in  order  to  secure  a 
world-order  of  its  own;  and  what  was  premised  there  of 
man  in  his  culture  is  here  corroborated  by  the  ethical  elabor- 
ation of  value  and  dignity  as  moral  categories. 


394  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

5 THE   DIGNITY   OF   ACQUIESCENCE 

In  major  ethics,  there  is  only  an  apparent  contradiction 
between  value  and  dignity,  for  in  the  very  act  of  receiving 
from  the  world  man   is  also  reacting  upon   it.     When  he 
yields  to  the  ethical,  he  feels  instinctively  that  he  is  sufiering 
so  much  loss  in  the  way  of  value,  and  it  is  only  the  belief 
in  the  victorious  nature  of  his  moral  dignity  that  reconciles 
him  to  the  good.     In  the  celebration  of  this  victory,  he  is 
permitted  to  participate  under  a  sky  where  no  clouds  of  re- 
nunciation are  seen.     For  in   the  major  sense   of  life,  the 
value  of  humanity  itself,  as  well  as  the  value  felt  by  human- 
ity as  such,  in  no  small  degree  consists  in  the  dignified  re- 
action upon  the  given  order  of  the  universe;  or  as  one  of 
Gorky's  characters  puts  it,  ''A  man  is  of  value  in  proportion 
to  his  resistance  to  the  power  of  life"  (Foma  Gordyeef?,  tr. 
Hapgood,  X,  p.  301).     From  this  point  of  view,  according 
to  which  renunciation  is  absorbed  in  human  dignity,  man  is 
led  to  realize  that  he  loses  no  genuine  value  froni  his  allegi- 
ance to  the  ethical,  for  major  morality  is  not  unlike  art  and 
religion  in  indicating  the  resultfulness  of   human  striving. 
Such  a  view  is  not  by  any  means  a  Semitic  one,  but  consists 
as  well  with  our  Aryan  pride  of  humanity,  which  forbids 
that  morality  should  exploit  mankind.     Man's  life  being  an 
alteration,  a  combination,  of  striving  from  within  and  sufiEer- 
ing  from  without,  it  is  not  expected  that  one  function  should 
wholly  yield  to  the  other.     For  this  reason,  we  cannot  coun- 
sel a  man  to  cease  striving,  according  to  the  ideal  of  self- 
assertion,  and  to  suffer  according  to  the  ideal  of  self-sur- 
render,  but  must   advise  him  to  be  himself   in   the   major 
sense  of  human  dignity.     That  he  is  not  called  upon  to  re- 
nounce.    Man  can  will  his  own  negation,  for  there  is  passion 
for  non-existence  which  is  as  real,  althought  not  as  ordinary, 
as  the  struggle  for  existence.     He  who  wills  to  be  can  also 
will  not  to  be.     Yet  even  under  the  weight  of  such  a  view 
of  life  man  may  still  be  himself   in  all  the   dignity  of  his 
humanity.     Buddhism,  which  tends  to  inculcate  a  nihilistic 
ideal,  is  none  the  less  insistent  upon  selfhood,  for  its  very 
notion  of  redemption  is  that  of  self-salvation  according  to 
the  ideals  of  the  "four-fold  truth"  and  the  "eight-fold  path. 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  395 

Hence  when  one's  pessimism  tends  to  rob  him  of  life's  very 
essence,  he  may  still  cling  to  selfhood  in  all  its  inner  dignity. 
When  he  plays  the  Entsagungsmotiv  it  is  his  own  music  and 
it  sounds  pleasant  to  his  ears. 

Nowhere  within  the  realm  of  minor  morality  do  we 
discover  the  plan  of  a  victorious  moral  campaign,  for  it  is 
either  sense  or  reason  that  triumphs,  not  humanity  itself. 
Every  one  who  really  lives  his  life,  however,  is  anxious  to 
avoid  both  the  snares  of  the  flesh  and  the  toils  of  the  law, 
so  that  he  wonders  whether  he  cannot  find  some  course  of 
ideal  conduct  which  shall  enable  him  to  obtain  the  victory 
over  these  foes  of  the  inner  life.  This  mingling  of  the  high 
and  the  low,  unknown  to  Wagner  in  the  "Ring/'  is  realized 
by  him  in  the  ideal  love  of  Tristan  and  Isolde.  The  fated 
yet  happy  pair  learn  of  a  love  which  knows  how  to  rise 
above  the  self-seeking  erotic  affection  of  Siegfried  and  Brunn- 
hilde,  while  it  does  not  call  upon  them  to  renounce  their 
holy  passion.  In  the  midst  of  their  resignation,  they  find 
solace  in  sympathy,  and  the  eternal  night  into  which  they 
sink  brings  love  as  well  as  death.  Earthly  joy  alone  cannot 
satisfy  the  striving  human  spirit,  while  sharp  renunciation 
is  no  less  likely  to  stifle  the  hope  of  humanity;  thus  it  be- 
comes necessary  to  postulate  an  ideal  acquiescence  in  the 
world-order  of  humanity,  whereby  man  may  still  triumph 
if  only  in  his  universal  capacity. 

But  while  man  is  ever  on  the  brink  of  spiritual  negation, 
his  inner  nature  guided  by  a  death-instinct  as  well  as  by  a 
life-impulse,  he  is  led  to  believe  that  his  own  individual 
existence  is  not  an  evil.  To  man  in  his  full  humanity, 
major  morality  says,  "Live  thy  life/'  "Love  thy  world/'  and 
the  whole  of  the  inward  striving  of  humanity  finally  con- 
centrates in  the  individual  as  the  one  who  catches  the  mean- 
ing of  humanity  and  carries  out  its  plan.  Both  art  and 
religion  take  on  new  power,  for  it  appears  that  their  concern 
is  not  with  a  minor  moralism,  which  ever  seeks  to  weaken 
the  will  or  anaesthetize  the  soul,  but  rather  with  a  major 
ethical  life,  wherein  the  individual's  self-affirmation  is 
qualified  and  restricted  only  by  an  infinite  humanity  in  which 
there  is  room  for  a  full  play  of  egoistic  fancy.  When  human 
existence  is  thus  viewed,  the  triumph  of  humanity  is  in  no 


396  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

wise  improbable,  while  human  dignity  |f/«ainabk  w^t^^^^^^^^ 
the  depreciation  of  genume  human  values      No  just  concep 
tion  of  the  spiritual  world-order  can  forbid  ^^^"^^"  ^j^^:^^^ 
pression,  and  the  victory  of  humanity  need  not  spell  defeat 

^^^  fo^Lrtta^n's  triumph  in  conduct  is  concerned    .^^^^^ 
depends  upon  our  conception  of  what  he  was  ongmally  ex- 
acted to  do.     Naturistic  ethics  claims  that  man  was  meant 
to    njoy  his  humanity  in  both  self  and  society ;  charactens  x 
ntuitionism  believes  he  was  meant  to  perfect  his  humanity 
n  reaso^^^     Now,  experience  shows  that  man  has  not  made 
a  success  of  either  the  animality  of  sense  or  the  spirituality 
of  reaTn ;  he  is  still  human  and  stands  midway  between  two 
dien  orders  of  life.     Our  estimate  of  his  moral  d^g-ty^- 
be  made  accordingly.     We  cannot  praise  "^^^  ^^  j»^  J"/  ^ 
ultimate  reason  for  the  sake  of  nature;  ^^  2?I is  c roper 
find  him  perfecting  the  spirit  in  defiance  «^/^"^^-  ^^/.^'^r 
attitude  consists  in  adjusting  the  claims  of  one  to  the  other 
fn  a  form  of  life  wherein  sense  occupies  the  lower,  spirit  the 
higher  position,  and  it  is  just  this  vertical  -j  p-f  e^^^ 
order  of  things  that  enables  us  to  view  man  as  he  is  in  his 
transition  from  nature  to  spirit.     Hence  we  -nsider  whethe^ 
he  has  attained  to  moral  dignity,  not  by  asking  whether  he  has 
elimfnated  the  sensuous,  which  claim  would  result  in  hypo- 
crisy as  the  attempt  led  to  defeat,  but  whether  he  has  found 
it  possible  to  subordinate  the  sensuous  to  the  spiritual. 

Ethics  here  seems  at  one  with  metaphysics,  for  as  man 
by  mental  acquiescence  seems  to  apprehend  the  very  reality 
of  the  world  as  a  whole,  so  he  thereby  attains  to  the  summit 
o    his  own  moral  striving.     In  the  act  of  acquiescence    how- 
ever,  man  is  not  inactive  so  that  one  must  transcend   the 
Spinozistic  ideal,  if  he  would  represent  the  climax  oj^ 
human  struggle  for  selfhood  and  worldhood.     The  essential 
eWnt Ttfe  ego's  activity  now  assumes  a  form  more  sign, 
ficant  than  that  of  a  striving  for  selfhood,  as .»"  t^e     rnan 
who  wills  himself,"  for  by  means  of  this  acquired    mtellec 
tual    selfhood    the    individual    asserts    his    worldhx>od    and 
exercises  his  free  activity  in  willing  the  world.     To  will  the 
world  fs  an  act  whereby  the  individua    uses  his  own  self- 
hood  for  the  purpose  of  attaining  worldhood,  while  as  an 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  397 

act  of  self-realization  it  is  at  the  same  time  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  world-order  in  its  totality.  Ethics  thus  reveals 
its  need  of  metaphysics,  for  the  highest  act  of  the  soul  stands 
in  need  of  an  ontological  principle;  that  is,  a  world  which 
it  can  will.  No  ethical  system  but  the  major  morality  of 
selfhood  can  represent  the  unity  of  the  practical  and  the 

speculative. 

Such  a  conclusion  is  in  harmony  with  the  philosophical 
principles  laid  down  in  PART  ONE,  where  we  saw  how  hu- 
manity had  inaugurated  a  historical  system  of  living  ontology, 
beginning  with  speculative  and  practical  forms  of  striving 
and  ending  in  a  world  of  humanity  recognizable  in  know- 
ledge and  art,  religion  and  ethics.  We  did  not  find  it  neces- 
sary to  demonstrate  any  special  principle  of  reality,  inasmuch 
as  these  phases  of  the  inner  life  make  us  aware  of  the  pres- 
ence of  a  world-order  implicit  in  our  thinking  and  acting. 
To  this  idea  ethics  returns  when  it  seeks  to  postulate  the 
supreme  act  of  the  individual,  whose  will  in  its  freedom 
exercises  no  caprice  incident  upon  mere  individuality,  but 
culminates  its  striving  in  a  supreme  act  of  willing  the  world 
as  a  world  of  humanity.  This  unity  of  selfhood  and  world- 
hood might  be  advanced  also  as  a  reconciliation  of  freedom 
and  fate,  but  our  system  has  nowhere  made  use  of  a  stark 
principle  of  free-will,  nor  has  it  encountered  a  fixed  element 
of  law.  On  the  contrary,  our  human  striving  for  selfhood 
culminates  in  a  striving  for  worldhood,  so  that  the  common 
distinction  of  freedom  and  fate  does  not  set  the  self  in  op- 
position to  the  world,  inasmuch  as  the  most  characteristic 
act  of  selfhood  consists  in  willing  its  worldhood. 

In  this  metaphysical  condition  of  free  fate,  man  finds 
himself  placed  in  a  position  where  self-realization  and  self- 
surrender  are  no  longer  in  opposition.  Self-realization  is 
seen  to  imply  a  form  of  selfhood  which  needs  something  more 
than  positive  sense  or  negative  reason  to  bring  about  its 
achievement.  The  striving  for  selfhood  assumes  a  cosmic 
character,  wherein  one's  individuality  involves  a  kind  of 
universality,  and  like  a  man  of  genius  he  becomes  a  world- 
person,  or  genuine  Ego.  This  condition  of  things  within 
the  soul  maics  the  act  of  acquiescence  something  quite  dif- 
ferent from  a  mere  self-surrender  as  that  which  causes  pain 
and  entails  loss.     Renunciation  is  realization,  and  selfhood 


398  VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 

worldhood.  It  is  the  triumph  of  humanity  in  a  major 
system  of  life,  wherein  the  ideal  in  man  and  the  real  m  the 
world  meet  upon  a  common  plane  and  s^l^^^.^^l^^^^J^^f  ^^^,^^ 
comes  an  act  of  metaphysical  significance.  This  is  the  true 
metaphysics  of  morals,  the  unity  of  setn  and  soUen. 

The  question  of  man's  moral  triumph  finds  expression 
directly  in  terms  of  our  present  system.     Man  is  in  nature, 
but  apparently  he  is  of  spirit,  a  condition  of  consciousness 
recognizable  as  humanity.     Now  arises  the  question  whether 
man  is  destined  to  accomplish  what  he  has  conceived  to  be  his 
ethical  vocation ;  namely,  the  assertion  of  his  inner  being  in 
contrast  to  outer  nature.     Will  the  history  of  humanity  re- 
veal the  victory  of  nature  over  spirit  or  of  spirit  over  nature . 
Both    eudaemonism    and    rigorism    refuse    to   entertain    this 
problem,   for  where   eudaemonism   ignores   the   ultimate   in 
spirit  for  the  immediate  in  sense,  rigorism  refuses  to  consider 
man  in  his  obviously  sensuous  nature.     Humanism  alone  is 
capable    of    raising    the    question    of    human    triumph    over 
nature.     Among  those  who  take  this  point  of  view,  there  is 
difference    of    opinion    concerning    the    outcome    ot    human 
striving,  but  it  is  not  comparable  to  the  party-quarrel  between 
the    two    traditional    schools.     Schopenhauer    and    Wagner 
assume  that  reason  is  destined  to  conquer  will,  that  spirit 
will  triumph  over  sense ;  Ibsen  and  Sudermann,  on  the  con- 
trary,  seem  inclined  to  postulate  a  victory  for  nature  over 
reason    (cf.   Axelrod,  Hermann   Sundermann,  Line  btudte, 

^^Bu't  this  statement  of  the  case  seems  to  indicate  a  con- 
tinuance of  the  error  that  nature  negates  spirit,   and  that 
reason  should  annihilate  sense.     Our  view  of  humanity  calls 
for  no  such  either-or;  we  survey  man  with  sense  below  and 
spirit  above  him,  not  with  one  to  the  right  and  the  other  to 
the  left,  and  where  a  strictly  ethical  and  logical  view  of 
reason  may  find  it  impossible  to  consider  such  a  mingling  ot 
concrete  and  abstract,  a  religious  and  aesthetical  view  of 
humanity  can  proceed  in  no  other  way.     Both  worship  and 
art  apprehend  man  in  his  totality,  wherein  spirit  and  sense, 
conscious  and  unconscious,  intellect  and  will,  are  strangely 
mingled  to  form  humanity.     Man  is  not  the  clear-cut  moral 
agent  whose  ethical  nature  was  so  sharply  outlined  by  the 


VALUE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE  399 

dogmatic  thinkers  of  the  rigoristic  school,  nor  his  world  the 
transparent  landscape  formerly  used  as  a  background  for 
the  staid  scenes  of  human  life;  on  the  contrary,  living  hu- 
manity is  found  in  an  atmospheric  world  whose  warmth 
and  moisture  change  the  appearance  of  the  free  moral  agent 
into  a  real  human  subject.  Thus  situated,  man  may  not  be 
able  to  satisfy  desire  or  willing  to  perform  his  duty ;  but  in 
the  totality  of  his  inner  life,  he  finds  value  just  as  his  striving 
leads  him  to  achieve  human  dignity. 


INDEX 


Abelard,  313. 

Aeschylus,  45. 

Alexander,  115.  150,  ISL  353- 

Angelo,  28,65,  112,  115. 

Ac^uinas,  245. 

Anstippus,  267. 

Aristotle,  27,  71.  80,  99.  I03. 
104,  146-149.  15^.  152, 
159,  168  181,  196,  298, 
305.  313.  347.  348.  353. 
358.  360. 

Arminius,  245. 

Aryans,  The,  56.  58.  64,  67, 
139.  282,  367,  394- 

Augustine,  St.,  156,  231,  297, 
356,  368. 

Bacon,   146    147,  150-154.  i59. 

358,  384- 
Balza,  138,  264. 
Barbizon  School,  146,  378- 
Barr^s,  Maurice,  117,  366. 
Baumgarten,  271,  306. 
Beethoven,  28,  115. 
Bentham,  94.  97.   "8,  132-134. 

170. 
Bhagavad    Gita,    The,    64,    74. 

152,  209,  254,  344.  351- 
Bios,  192. 
Bonaparte,  Napoleon,   112,  115, 

353.370,392. 
Brahman,  57,  63,  64,  67. 
Browning.  171. 
Buddha,  Gautama,  50,  74,  m, 

161,   209,   255,  256,  262, 

263,  379.  391- 
Burke,  149.  306. 
Butler,  112,  113,  "7.  192.  I93. 

208,  242,  298,  347.  362. 
Caesar,  112,  115.  151.  295.  353. 

372. 
Calderon,  74,  254. 
Calvin,  245. 


Champeaux,  William  of,  372. 

Christianity,  30,  64,  74.  86,  156- 
158,  161,  185,  196,  200, 
203,  222,  233,  234,  255, 
256,  261,  265,  267,  337. 
338.  342.  347.  365.  367. 

379.  391- 
Cicero,  151.  192,  353- 
Clarke,   Samuel,    84,   216,   217, 

221,  242   298. 
Confucius,  85. 
Corot,  146,  169,  305.      ^ 
Cudworth,    84,    185,    187,    190, 

242,  298. 
Cynics,  The,  Cynicism,  58,  185, 

263,  267. 
Cyrenaics,  58,  170. 
Dante,  Danteist,  174.  ^75.  254- 
Darwin,  196-198. 
David,  J.  L.,  146. 
Davids,  Rhys,  255. 
Delacroix,  144.  146. 
Descartes,  67. 

Dhamma  Pada,  The,  210. 

Diodorus,  192. 

Dominicans,  The,  156. 

Donatello,  252. 

Dostoieffsky,  370,  379- 

Ehrenfels.  320,  324.  325- 

Eleatics,  The,  215. 

Enlightenment,  The,     81,     150, 
153.  174.300.390. 

Epicurus,    Epicurean,    73.    "5. 
144.  294.  298,  385. 

Eucken,  53.  349- 

Euclid,  215,  218. 

Fichte,  66,  116,  I77.  ^84,  335» 
348,  364,  368,  370.  372. 

France,  Anatole,  126,  283,  392- 

Fiancis,  St.,  295. 

Franciscan,  156. 

Geulincx,  260. 

401 


402 


INDEX 


Ghiberti,  252. 
Gnosticism,  46,  79,  124. 
Goethe,     148,     154,     155.     158, 

I59»   169,   174,   175.  295, 

299.  351.  372,  373.  384. 
Gorky,  260,  394. 
Gospels,  The,  260. 
Greek  Philosophy,  57,  85,  215. 
Green,  T.  H.,  193,  301. 
Gunas   (Tamas,   Rajas,   Sattva) 

The,  45,  46,  48,  49.  79. 

85,    124,    182,    302,    342, 

353. 
Hauptmann,  373,  392. 

Hegel,  43,  44,  72,  353. 

Hegesias,  170. 

Hellenism,    61,     143,     146,    150 

156,   252,  261,  266,  310, 

314- 
Heraclitus,  50,  205,  368. 

Herbart,  320. 

Herder,  80. 

Hobbes,  50,  84,  106,  113  116, 
119,  124-126,  132,  133, 
170,    223,    296-298,    347, 

370. 

Holbein,  106. 

Homer,  305. 

Hume,  94,  124,  132-134,  193, 
232,  298,  301. 

Hutcheson,  119,  223,  224,  298, 
366. 

Huysmans,  391. 

Ibsen,  48,  74,  105,  112-114,  116, 
117.  159.  258,  259,  302, 
333.  346.  354.  367.  369. 
373.  392,  398. 

James,  St.,  249. 

Job,  332. 

Kant,  27,  34,  57.  83,  85,  132, 
154.  156,  158,  168,  169, 
173,  174,  189,  190,  193, 
213,  215-219,  221,  223- 
225,  230,  232,  235,  239- 
243,  256,  257,  279,  282, 
296-298,  300,  301,  306, 
312,  341,  348.  350.  352, 
354.  366,  387.  390- 
Kapila,  44,  46-50,  182. 


Kingdom  of  God,  64,   196,  210, 

256,  337. 
Krueger,  324,  325,  330. 
Kwang-Tze,  254,  344. 
Laotze,  85,  254. 
Leibnitz,  66,  80,  375. 
Lessing,  149,  306. 
Locke,  190. 
Lotze,  219,  320. 
Mandeville,  132,  133,  199,  223. 
Martineau,  301. 
Marx,  379. 

Megarian  School,  215. 
Meinong,  322,  324. 
Mendelssohn,  168. 
Michelet,  46. 
Mill,   95.    103.    104.    "9.    120, 

133.  134- 
Millet,  65,  106,  169. 
Montaigne,  153,  158,  268. 
New  Testament,   The,   63,   64 

67,  210,  345. 
Nietzsche,   106,    114,    116,    117, 

126,  139,   199.  257,    260, 

298,  299,  304,  360,    369, 

392. 

Nirvana,  iii,  255. 

Novalis,  155,  158. 

Old  Testament,  The,  209. 

Parmenides,  57,  215. 

Pascal,  254,  260. 

Paul,  St.,  345. 

Periander,  192. 

Pericles,  147,  305. 

Petrarch,  305. 

Phidias,  115,  375- 

Plato,  34,  45-50.  57,  61,  62,  71, 
79,  85,  98,  122,  124,  144, 
145,  118,  166,  182,  184, 
196,  243,  290,  295,  298, 
304.  310.  313.  335.  337. 
347.  352,  372.  375- 

Plotinus,  305. 

Pragmatism,  60,  354,  360. 

Price,  189,  190,  225,  298. 

Protagoras,  368. 

Protestantism,  245,  272,  292. 

Proverbs,  Book  of,  74,  210. 

Puritanism,  211,  274. 


INDEX 


403 


Rabelais,  299. 
Raphael,  75,  295,  372. 
Reischle,  323. 
Rembrandt,  106,  375. 
Renaissance,     The,     147,      150, 

153.  252,  271,378. 
Romanticism,  195. 
Rousseau,  152,  166,  177. 
Rousseau,  Theodore,  146. 
Sankhya,  The,  44,  45.  50.  76, 

79,  150,  162,  344,  345. 
Schiller,  47,  48,  49,  73.  76,   87, 

124,   143,   148,   150,   154. 

158,   169,   182,  293,  297, 

305.  342.  384- 
Schlegel,  Friedrich,  155. 
Schleiermacher,    29,    168,     173, 

293.  365. 
Scholasticism,  245,  389. 

Schopenhauer,  53,  57,  65,  72, 
73,  113,  144,  158,  164, 
171,  198,  199,  230,  254, 
255.  257.  278,  279,  290, 
298,  299,  302,  306,  348, 
350.  352,  354.  359.  368, 
370,  391.  398. 

Scotus,  156,  245. 

Semitic,  The,  58,  59,  60,  63,  67, 
282,  367,  394. 

Shaftesbury,  50,  124,  192,  193, 
298. 

Shakespeare,  148,  156,  164,  174, 

175.  236,  375. 
Shaw,  Bernard,  126. 
Sidgwick,    116,    119,    120,    134, 

135.  193.  301. 
Smith,  Adam,  50,  124,  196,  197, 

298. 
Socrates,  26,  85,  151,  185,  213, 

215,  216,  218,  242,  263, 

298.  353.  368,  372,  375- 
Sophists,  The,  67. 
Spencer,  50,  loi,  121,  123-126, 

170,  292,  298,  349. 


Spinoza,    168,    189,    218,    290, 

298,  393.  396. 
Stendhal,    116,    260,    370,    385 

392- 
Stephen,    loi,    122,    123,    186, 

196,  299,  301. 
Stilpo,  192. 

Stirner,  116,  125,  126,  260,  369. 
Stobaeus,  192. 
Stoics,   50,   80,    144,    185,    192, 

196,  203,  263,  292,  294, 

298,  310,  314. 
Strindberg,  392. 
Sudermann,  69,   117,   148,  260, 

261,  392,  398. 
Sulzer,  169. 
Tantalus,  98,  171. 
Tao  and   Taoism,   30,    74,    85, 

209,  254,  299,  344. 
Tasso,  305. 
Tetens,  80,  168. 
Tolstoi,  126,  148,  257 1^39 1. 
Turgenieff,  I17,  126,  259. 
Upanishads,  The,  31,  63. 
Valentinus,  46,  47,  182. 
Veda,  The,  56,  67,  73.  222. 
Vedanta,   30,   45.   63,   67,   337, 

338,  342,  367- 
Velasquez,  75,  106. 
Vico,  46-49,  79,  85,  124,  182. 
Vielliers  de  L'Isle  Adam,  116. 

Voltaire,  154.  159.  177.  384.  385- 
Vyasa,  85. 

Wagner,  74,  116,  117,  126,  144, 
175.  258,  259,  369,  373. 

391.  395.398. 
Winckelmann,  143,  306. 
Xenophanes,  86. 
Xenophen,  151,  353. 
Yoga,  The,   152,  254,  264,  344, 

345- 
Zoroaster,  85. 


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